*  *  *  * 


A  / '"  BRIG  /;      o  TAT  E  S  M1 


UC-NRI 


GIFT   ©F 
A.    F.   Morrison 


american 


EDITED   BY 


JOHN  T.  MORSE,  JR. 


JJtatcgrnen 


MARTIN  VAN   BUREN 


EDWARD  M.  SHEPARD 


BOSTON  AT^iD  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


1891 


E387 

55 


Copyright,  1888, 
1<Y  ^UTVA.HD   M,  SIIEPARD.1 


All  rights  reserved. 

GIFT  OF 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass  ,  U.  S.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Houghton  &  Company. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

AMERICAN  POLITICS  WHEN  VAN  BUREN'S  CAREER  BEGAN. 
—  JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
EARLY  YEARS.  —  PROFESSIONAL  LIFE 12 

CHAPTER  III. 

STATE  SENATOR;  ATTORNEY-GENERAL;  MEMBER  OF  THE 
CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION 32 

CHAPTER  IV. 

UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  —  REESTABLISHMENT  OF  PAR 
TIES. —  PARTY  LEADERSHIP 75 

CHAPTER  V. 

DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828.  —  GOVERNOR 131 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SECRETARY  OF  STATE.  —  DEFINITE  FORMATION  OF  THE 
DEMOCRATIC  CREED 1^1 

CHAPTER  VII. 

MINISTER  TO  ENGLAND.  —  VICE-PRESIDENT.  —  ELECTION 
TO  THE  PRESIDENCY *™ 

M107332 


vi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
CBISM  OF  1837 242 

CHAPTER  IX. 
PRESIDENT.  —  SUB-TREASURY  BILL 278 

CHAPTER  X. 

PRESIDENT.  —  CANADIAN  INSURRECTION.  —  TEXAS.  —  SEMI- 
NOT.E  WAR.  —  DEFEAT  FOR  KEELECTION 300 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ex -PRESIDENT. SLAVERY. 1  EXAS  ANNEXATION.  —  DE 
FEAT  BY  THE  SOUTH.  —  FBEE-SOIL  CAMPAIGN.  —  LAST 
YEARS 340 

CHAPTER  XII. 
VAN  BUREN'S  CHARACTER  AMD  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.    .    .  383 


MARTEST  VAN  BUEEK 


CHAPTER  I. 

AMERICAN  POLITICS  WHEN  VAN  BUBEN's  CAREER 
BEGAN.  —  JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE. 

IT  sometimes  happened  during  the  anxious  years 
when  the  terrors  of  our  civil  war,  though  still  smoulder 
ing,  were  nearly  aflame,  that  on  Wall  Street  or  Nassau 
Street,  busy  men  of  New  York  saw  Martin  Van  Buren 
and  his  son  walking  arm  in  arm.  "  Prince  John,"  tall, 
striking  in  appearance,  his  hair  divided  at  the  middle  in 
a  fashion  then  novel  for  Americans,  was  in  the  prime  of 
life,  resolute  and  aggressive  in  bearing.  His  father  was 
a  white-haired  and  bright-eyed  old  man,  erect  but  short 
in  figure,  of  precise  though  easy  and  kindly  politeness, 
and  with  a  touch  of  deference  in  his  manner.  His 
presence  did  not  peremptorily  command  the  attention  of 
strangers ;  but  to  those  who  looked  attentively  there 
was  a  plain  distinction  in  the  refined  and  venerable 
face.  Passers-by  might  well  turn  back  to  see  more  of 
the  two  men  thus  affectionately  and  picturesquely  to 
gether.  For  they  were  famous  characters,  —  the  one 
in  the  newer,  the  other  in  the  older  politics  of  America. 
John  Van  Buren,  fresh  from  his  Free  Soil  battle  and  the 
tussles  of  the  Hards  and  Softs,  was  striving  to  serve  the 


a  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

k  cause  %  of,  Jhp  JCFnipn,  though  conscious  that  he  rested 
\  tinker 'tl^Jsps'pieicHi  of  the  party  to  whose  service,  its 
1  divisions  in*  New"  York  now  seemingly  ended,  he  had 
«l^el/*tetjyi{ed.«  Jkiffre  still  faced  the  slave  power  with 
^ad  andepebcl&Ree'  bhly'  partially  abated  before  the  exi 
gencies  of  party  loyalty.  The  ex -President,  definitely 
withdrawn  from  the  same  Free  Soil  battle,  a  struggle 
into  which  he  had  entered  when  the  years  were  already 
heavy  upon  him,  had  survived  to  be  once  more  a  worthy 
in  the  Democratic  party,  again  to  receive  its  formal 
veneration,  but  never  again  its  old  affection.  In  their 
timid  manoauvres  with  slavery  it  was  perhaps  with  the 
least  possible  awkwardness  that  the  northern  Democrats 
sought  to  treat  him  as  a  great  Democratic  leader ;  but 
they  did  not  let  it  be  forgotten  that  the  leader  was  for 
ever  retired  from  leadership.  While  the  younger  man 
was  in  the  thick  of  political  encounters  which  the  party 
carried  on  in  blind  futility,  the  older  man  was  hardly 
more  than  an  historical  personage.  Pie  was  no  longer, 
his  friends  strove  to  think,  the  schismatic  candidate  of 
1848,  but  rather  the  ally  and  friend  of  Jackson,  or, 
better  still  and  further  away,  the  disciple  of  Jefferson. 

For,  more  than  any  other  American,  Martin  Van 
Buren  had  succeeded  to  the  preaching  of  Jefferson's 
political  doctrines,  and  to  his  political  power  as  well, 
that  curious  and  potent  mingling  of  philosophy,  states 
manship,  and  electioneering.  The  distrust  of  the  Whigs 
towards  Van  Buren  was  still  bitter  ;  the  hot  anger  of 
his  own  party  over  the  blow  he  had  dealt  in  1848  was 
still  far  from  subsided ;  the  gratitude  of  most  Free  Soil 
men  had  completely  disappeared  with  his  apparent 
acquiescence  in  the  politics  of  Pierce  and  Buchanan. 
Save  in  a  narrow  circle  of  anti-slavery  Democrats,  Van 


AMERICAN  POLITICS.  3 

Buren,  in  these  last  days  of  his,  was  judged  at  best  with 
coldness,  and  most  commonly  with  dislike  or  even  con 
tempt.  Not  much  of  any  other  temper  has  yet  gone 
into  political  history  ;  its  writers  have  frequently  been 
content  to  accept  the  harshness  of  partisan  opinion,  or 
even  the  scurrility  and  mendacity  visited  upon  him 
daring  his  many  political  campaigns,  and  to  ignore  the 
positive  records  of  his  career  and  public  service.  The 
present  writer  confesses  to  have  begun  this  Life,  not 
indeed  sharing  any  of  the  hatred  or  contempt  so  com 
monly  felt  towards  Van  Buren,  but  still  given  to  many 
serious  depreciations  of  him,  which,  as  a  better  exam 
ination  has  shown  the  writer,  had  their  ultimate  source 
in  the  mere  dislike  of  personal  or  political  enemies,  — - 
a  dislike  to  whose  expression,  often  powerful  and  vivid, 
many  writers  have  extended  a  welcome  seriously  incon 
sistent  with  the  fairness  and  truth  of  history. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  chosen  President  in 
1860,  this  predecessor  of  his  by  a  quarter  century  was 
justly  enough  an  historical  figure.  The  gracious,  genial 
old  man  connected,  visibly  and  really,  those  stirring  and 
dangerous  modern  days  with  the  first  political  struggles 
under  the  American  Constitution,  struggles  then  long 
passed  into  the  quiet  of  history,  to  leave  him  almost 
their  only  living  reminiscence.  Martin  Van  Buren  was 
a  man  fully  grown  and  already  a  politician  when  in 
1801  the  triumph  of  Thomas  Jefferson  completed  the 
political  foundation  of  the  United  States.  Its  profound 
inspiration  still  remained  with  him  on  this  eve  of  Lin 
coln's  election.  Under  its  influence  his  political  career 
had  begun  and  had  ended. 

At  Jefferson's  election  the  aspiration  and  fervor 
which  attended  the  first,  the  new-born  sense  of  Ameri* 


4  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

can  national  life,  had  largely  worn  away  ;  and  the  ideal 
visions  of  human    liberty  had  long  before  grown  dim 
amidst  the  practical  hardships,  the  vicissitudes  of  mean 
ness  and  glory  during  seven  years  of  revolutionary  war, 
and  amid  the  four  years  of  languor  and  political  in 
competence  which  followed.     In  the  agitation  for  better 
union,   political  theories  filled  the  minds  of  our   fore 
fathers.   Lessons  were  learned  from  the  Achaean  League, 
as  well  as  from  the  Swiss  Confederation,  the  German 
Empire,   and   the  British    Constitution.     Both    history 
and  speculation,  however,  were  firmly  subordinated  to 
an   extraordinary  common  sense,  in  part  flowing  from, 
as  it  was   most  finely  exhibited  in,  the  luminous  and 
powerful,  if  unexalted,  genius  of  Franklin.     From  the 
open  beginning  of  constitution-making  at  Annapolis  in 
1786  until  the  inauguration  of  John  Adams,  the  Amer 
ican  people,  under  the  masterful  governing  of  Washing 
ton,  were  concerned  with  the  framework  upon  which  the 
fabric  of  their  political  life  was  to  be  wrought.     The 
framework  was  doubtless  in  itself  of  a  vast  and  endur 
ing  importance.     If   the  consolidating  and  aristocratic 
schemes  of  Hamilton  had  not  met  defeat  i%  the  federal 
convention,    or   if   the  separatist   jealousies   of  Patrick 
Henry  and  George  Clinton  had  not  met  defeat  in  Vir 
ginia  and  New  York  after  the  work  of  the  convention 
was  done,  there  would  to-day  be  a  different  American 
people.     Nor  would  our  history  be  the  amazing  story 
of  the  hundred  years  past.     But  upon  the  governmen 
tal   framework   thus  set  up  could   be  woven   political 
fabrics  widely  and  essentially  different  in  their  material, 
their  use,  and  their  enduring  virtue.     For  quite  apart 
from   the  framework  of  government  were  the  temper 
and  traditions  of  popular  politics  out  of  which  comes, 


JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE.  5 

and  must  always  come,  the  essential  and  dominant  nature 
of  public  institutions.  In  this  creative  and  deeper  work 
Jefferson  was  engaged  during  his  struggle  for  political 
power  after  returning  from  France  in  1789,  during  his 
presidential  career  from  1801  to  1809,  and  during  the 
more  extraordinary,  and  in  American  history  the  un 
paralleled,  supremacy  of  his  political  genius  after  he  had 
left  office.  In  the  circumstances  of  our  colonial  life, 
in  our  race  extractions,  in  our  race  fusion  upon  the  At 
lantic  seaboard,  and  in  the  moral  effect  of  forcible  and 
embittered  separation  from  the  parent  country,  arose 
indeed,  to  go  no  further  back,  the  political  instincts 
of  American  men.  It  is,  however,  fatal  to  adequate 
conception  of  our  political  development  to  ignore  the 
enormous  formative  influence  which  the  twenty  years  of 
Jefferson's  rule  had  upon  American  political  character. 
But  so  partial  and  sometimes  so  partisan  have  been 
the  historians  of  our  early  national  politics  in  their 
treatment  of  that  great  man,  that  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  political  atmosphere  in  which  Van  Bur  en  began  his 
career  is  exceedingly  difficult. 

There  was  an  American  government,  an  American 
nation,  when  Washington  gladly  escaped  to  Mt.  Vernon 
from  the  bitterly  factional  quarrels  of  the  politicians  at 
Philadelphia.  The  government  was  well  ordered  ;  the 
nation  was  respectable  and  dignified.  But  most  of  the 
people  were  either  still  colonial  and  provincial,  or  were 
rushing,  in  turbulence  and  bad  temper,  to  crude  specu 
lations  and  theories.  Twenty-five  years  later,  Jefferson 
had  become  the  political  idol  of  the  American  people,  a 
people  completely  and  forever  saturated  with  demo« 
cratic  aspirations,  democratic  ideals,  what  John  Mar 
shall  called  "  political  metaphysics,"  a  people  with  strong 


6  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

and  lasting  characteristics,  no  longer  either  colonial  or 
provincial,  but  profoundly  national.  The  skill,  the  in 
dustry,  the  arts  of  the  politician,  had  been  used  by  a 
man  gifted  with  the  genius  and  not  free  from  the  faults 
of  a  philosopher,  to  plant  in  American  usages,  preju 
dices,  and  traditions,  in  the  very  fibre  of  American 
political  life,  a  cardinal  and  fruitful  idea.  The  work 
was  done  for  all  time.  For  Americans,  government 
was  thenceforth  to  be  a  mere  instrument.  No  longer 
a  symbol,  or  an  ornament  or  crown  of  national  life, 
however  noble  and  august,  it  was  a  simple  means  to  a 
plain  end ;  to  be  always,  and  if  need  be  rudely,  tested 
and  measured  by  its  practical  working,  by  its  service  to 
popular  rights  and  needs.  In  those  earlier  days,  too, 
there  had  been  "  classes  and  masses,"  the  former  of 
whom  held  public  service  and  public  policy  as  matters 
of  dignity  and  order  and  high  assertion  of  national 
right  and  power,  requiring  in  their  ministers  peculiar 
esoteric  light,  and  an  equipment  of  which  common  men 
ought  not  to  judge,  because  they  could  not  judge  aright. 
Afterward,  in  Monroe's  era  of  good  feeling,  the  per 
sonal  rivalries  of  presidential  candidates  were  in  bad 
temper  enough ;  but  Americans  were  at  last  all  demo 
crats.  Whether  for  better  or  worse,  the  nation  had 
ceased  to  be  either  British  or  colonial  or  provincial  in 
its  character.  In  the  delightiul  Rip  Van  Winkle  of  a 
later  Jefferson,  during  the  twenty  years'  sleep,  the  old 
Dutch  house  has  gone,  the  peasant's  dress,  the  quaint 
inn  with  its  village  tapster,  all  the  old  scene  of  loyal 
provincial  life.  Rip  returns  to  a  noisy,  boastful,  self- 
assertive  town  full  of  American  "  push  "  and  "  drive," 
and  profane  disregard  of  superiors  and  everything 
ancient.  It  was  hardly  a  less  change  which  spread 


JEFFERSON' S  INFLUENCE.  1 

through  the  United  States  in  the  twenty  years  of  Jef 
ferson's  unrivaled  and  fruitful  leadership.  Supersti 
tious  regard  for  the  "  well-born,"  for  institutions  of 
government  as  images  of  veneration  apart  from  their 
immediate  and  practical  use  ;  the  faith  in  government 
as  essentially  a  financial  establishment  which  ought  to 
be  on  peculiarly  friendly  relations  with  banks  and  bank 
ers  ;  the  treatment  and  consideration  of  our  democratic 
organization  as  an  experiment  to  be  administered  with 
deprecatory  deference  to  European  opinion  ;  the  idea 
that  upon  the  great,  simple  elements  of  political  belief 
and  practice,  the  mass  of  men  could  not  judge  as  wisely 
and  safely  as  the  opulent,  the  cultivated,  the  educated  ; 
the  idea  that  it  was  a  capital  feature  of  political  art 
to  thwart  the  rashness  and  incompetence  of  the  lower 
people,  —  all  these  theories  and  traditions,  which  had 
firmly  held  most  of  the  disciplined  thought  of  Europe 
and  America,  and  to  which  the  lurid  horrors  of  the 
French  Revolution  had  brought  apparent  consecration, 
—  all  these  had  now  gone  ;  all  had  been  fatally  wounded, 
or  were  sullenly  and  apologetically  cherished  in  the 
aging  bitterness  of  the  Federalists.  There  was  an  Amer 
ican  people  with  as  distinct,  as  powerful,  as  character 
istic  a  polity  as  belonged  to  the  British  islanders.  In 
1776  a  youthful  genius  had  seized  upon  a  colonial  re 
volt  against  taxation  as  the  occasion  to  make  solemn 
declaration  of  a  seeming  abstraction  about  human  rights. 
He  had  submitted,  however,  to  subordinate  his  theory 
during  the  organization  of  national  defense  and  the 
strengthening  of  the  framework  of  government.  Nor 
did  he  shine  in  either  of  those  works.  But  with  the 
nation  established,  with  a  union  secured  so  that  its  peo 
ple  could  safely  attend  to  the  simpler  elements  of  human 


8  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

rights,  Jefferson  and  his  disciples  were  able  to  lead 
Americans  to  the  temper,  the  aspirations,  and  the  very 
prejudices  of  essential  democracy.  The  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  ten  amendments  to  the  Constitution 
theoretically  formulating  the  rights  of  men  or  of  the 
states,  sank  deep  into  the  sources  of  American  political 
life.  So  completely  indeed  was  the  work  done,  that  in 
1820  there  was  but  one  political  party  in  America ;  all 
were  Jeffersonian  Republicans ;  and  in  1824,  when  the 
Republican  party  was  broken  up,  the  only  dispute  was 
whether  Adams  or  Jackson  or  Crawford  or  Clay  or 
Calhoun  best  represented  the  political  beliefs  now  al 
most  universal.  It  then  seemed  to  Americans  as  if 
they  had  never  known  any  other  beliefs,  as  if  these 
doctrines  of  their  democracy  were  truisms  to  which  the 
rest  of  the  world  was  marvelously  blind. 

Nothing  in  American  public  life  has,  in  prolonged 
anger  and  even  savage  desperation,  equaled  the  attacks 
upon  Jefferson  during  the  steady  growth  of  his  stupen 
dous  influence.  The  hatred  of  him  personally,  and  the 
belief  in  the  wickedness  of  his  private  and  public  life, 
survive  in  our  time.  Nine  tenths  of  the  Americans 
who  then  read  books  sincerely  thought  him  an  enemy  of 
mankind  and  of  all  that  was  sacred.  Nine  tenths  of  the 
authors  of  American  books  on  history  or  politics  have 
to  this  day  written  under  the  influence  which  ninety 
years  ago  controlled  their  predecessors.  And  for  this 
there  is  no  little  reason.  As  the  American  people  grew 
conscious  of  their  own  peculiar  and  intensely  active 
political  force,  there  came  to  them  a  period  of  national 
and  popular  life  in  which  much  was  unlovely,  much  was 
crude,  much  was  disagreeably  vulgar.  Books  upon 
America  written  by  foreign  travelers,  from  the  days  of 


JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE.  9 

Jefferson  down  to  our  civil  war,  superficial  and  offensive 
as  they  often  were,  told  a  great  deal  of  truth.  We  do 
not  now  need  to  wince  at  criticisms  upon  a  rawness,  an 
insolent  condescension  towards  the  political  ignorance  of 
foreigners  and  the  unhappy  subjects  of  kings,  a  harshness 
in  the  assertion  of  the  equality  of  Caucasian  men,  and  a 
restless,  boastful  manner.  The  criticisms  were  in  great 
measure  just.  But  the  critics  were  stupid  and  blind  not 
to  see  the  vast  and  vital  work  and  change  going  on 
before  their  eyes,  to  chiefly  regard  the  trifling  and  inci 
dental  things  which  disgusted  them.  Their  eyes  were 
open  to  all  our  faults  of  taste  and  manner,  but  closed 
to  the  self-dependent  and  self-assertive  energy  the  dis 
order  of  whose  exhibition  would  surely  pass  away.  In 
every  democratic  experiment,  in  every  experiment  of 
popular  or  national  freedom,  there  is  almost  inevitable 
a  vulgarizing  of  public  manners,  a  lack  of  dignity  in 
details,  which  disturbs  men  who  find  restful  delight  in 
orderly  and  decorous  public  life  ;  and  their  disgust  is 
too  often  directed  against  beneficent  political  changes 
or  reforms.  If  one  were  to  judge  the  political  temper 
of  the  American  people  from  many  of  our  own  writers, 
and  still  more  if  he  were  to  judge  it  from  the  observa 
tions  even  of  intelligent  and  friendly  foreigners  prior  to 
1861,  he  would  believe  that  temper  to  be  sordid,  mean, 
noisy,  boastful,  and  even  cruel.  But  from  the  war 
of  1812  with  England  to  the  election  of  Buchanan  in 
1856,  the  American  people  had  been  doing  a  profound, 
organic,  democratic  work.  Meantime  many  had  seen 
no  more  than  the  unsightly,  the  mean  and  trivial,  the 
malodorous  details,  which  were  mere  incidents  and  blem 
ishes  of  hidden  and  dynamic  operations.  Unimagina 
tive  minds  usually  fail  to  see  the  greater  and  deeper 


10  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

movements  of  politics  as  well  as  those  of  science.  In 
the  public  virtues  then  maturing  there  lay  the  ability 
long  and  strenuously  to  conduct  an  enterprise  the  great 
est  which  modern  times  have  known,  and  an  extraordi 
nary  popular  capacity  for  restraint  and  discipline.  In 
those  virtues  was  sleeping  a  tremendously  national  spirit 
which,  with  cost  and  sacrifice  not  to  be  measured  by  the 
vast  figures  of  the  statistician,  on  one  side  sought  inde 
pendence,  and  on  the  other  saved  the  Union,  —  an  ex 
alted  love  of  men  and  truth  and  liberty,  which,  after  all 
the  enervations  of  pecuniary  prosperity,  endured  with 
patience  hardships  and  losses,  and  the  less  heroic  but 
often  more  dangerous  distresses  of  taxation,  —  at  the 
North  a  magnanimity  in  victory  unequaled  in  the  tra 
ditions  of  men,  and  at  the  South  a  composure  and  dig 
nity  and  absence  of  either  bitterness  or  meanness  which 
brought  out  of  defeat  far  larger  treasures  than  could 
have  come  with  victory.  But  these  were  not  effects 
without  a  cause.  In  them  all  was  only  the  fruit,  the 
normal  fruit,  of  the  political  habits,  ideals,  traditions, 
whose  early  and  unattractive  disorders  had  chagrined 
many  of  the  best  of  Americans,  and  had  seemed  so 
natural  to  foreigners  who  feared  or  distrusted  a  democ 
racy.  There  had  been  forming,  during  forty  or  fifty 
years  of  a  certain  raw  unloveliness,  the  peculiar  and 
powerful  self-reliance  of  a  people  whose  political  inde 
pendence  meant  far  more  than  a  mere  separate  govern 
ment. 

In  these  years  Van  Buren  was  one  of  the  chief  men 
in  American  public  life.  He  and  his  political  associates 
had  been  profoundly  affected  by  the  Jeffersonian  phi 
losophy  of  government.  They  robustly  held  its  tenets 
until  the  flame  and  vengeance  of  the  slavery  conflict 


JEFFERSON'S  INFLUENCE.  11 

drove  them  from  political  power.  In  our  own  day  we 
have,  in  the  able  speeches  with  which  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
fatigued  respectful  though  often  unsympathetic  hearers 
at  Democratic  meetings,  heard  something  of  the  same 
robust  political  philosophy,  brought  directly  from  inter 
course  with  his  famous  neighbor  and  political  master.' 
Van  Buren  himself  breathed  it  as  the  very  atmosphere 
of  American  public  life,  during  his  early  career  which 
had  just  begun  when  Jefferson,  his  robes  of  office 
dropped  and  his  faults  of  administration  forgotten, 
seemed  the  serene,  wise  old  man  presiding  over  a  land 
completely  won  to  his  ideals  of  democracy.  Under 
this  extraordinary  influence  and  in  this  political  light, 
there  opened  with  the  first  years  of  the  century  the  pub 
lic  life  to  be  narrated  in  this  volume. 


CHAPTER  II. 

EARLY   TEAKS. PROFESSIONAL   LIFE. 

AT  the  close  of  the  American  Revolution,  Abraham 
Van  Buren  was  a  farmer  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Hudson 
River,  New  York.  He  was  of  Dutch  descent,  as  was 
his  wife,  whose  maiden  name  Hoes,  corrupted  from  Goes, 
is  said  to  have  had  distinction  in  Holland.  But  it  would 
be  mere  fancy  to  find  in  the  statesman  particular  traits 
brought  from  the  dyked  swamp  lands  whence  some  of 
his  ancestors  came.  Those  who  farmed  the  rich  fields 
of  Columbia  county  were  pretty  thorough  Americans; 
their  characteristics  were  more  immediately  drawn  from 
the  soil  they  cultivated  and  from  the  necessary  habits  of 
their  life  than  from  the  lands,  Dutch  or  English,  from 
which  their  forefathers  had  emigrated.  Late  in  the 
eighteenth  century  they  were  no  longer  frontiersmen. 
For  a  century  and  more  this  eastern  Hudson  River  coun 
try  had  been  peacefully  and  prosperously  cultivated. 
There  was  no  lack  of  high  spirit ;  but  it  was  shown  in 
lawsuits  and  political  feuds  rather  than  in  skirmishes 
with  red  men.  It  was  close  to  the  old  town  of  Albany 
with  its  official  and  not  undignified  life,  and  had  com 
paratively  easy  access  to  New  York  by  sloop  or  the  post- 
road.  It  had  been  an  early  settlement  of  the  colony. 
Within  its  borders  were  now  the  estates  and  mansions  of 
large  landed  proprietors,  who  inherited  or  acquired  from 
a  more  varied  and  affluent  life  some  of  the  qualities, 


EARLY   ZEARS.  13 

good  and  bad,  of  a  country  gentry.  It  was  a  region  of 
easy,  orderly  comfort,  sound  and  robust  enough,  but  not 
sharing  the  straight  and  precise,  though  meddling,  puri 
tanical  habits  which  a  few  iuiles  away,  over  the  high 
Berkshire  hills,  had  come  from  the  shores  of  New  Eng 
land. 

The  elder  Van  Buren  was  said  by  his  son's  enemies  to 
have  kept  a  tavern  ;  and  he  probably  did.  Farming  and 
tavern-keeping  then  were  f  ai  ciy  interchangeable  ;  and  the 
gracious  manner,  the  tact  with  men,  which  the  younger 
Van  Buren  developed  to  a  marked  degree,  it  is  easy  to 
believe  came  rather  from  the  social  and  varied  life  of  an 
inn  than  from  the  harsher  isolation  of  a  farm.  The 
statesman's  boyish  days  were  spent  among  poor  and  rude 
neighbors.  He  was  born  at  Kinderhook,  an  old  village 
of  New  York,  on  the  5th  of  December,  1782.  The 
usual  years  of  schooling  were  probably  passed  in  one  of 
the  dilapidated,  weather-beaten  schoolhouses  from  which 
has  come  so  much  of  what  is  best  in  American  life,  He 
studied  later  in  the  Kinderhook  Academy,  one  of  the 
higher  schools  which  in  New  York  have  done  good  work, 
though  not  equaling  the  like  schools  in  Massachusetts. 
Here  he  learned  a  little  Latin,  But  when  at  fourteen 
years  of  age  he  entered  a  law  office,  he  had  of  course  the 
chief  discipline  of  book-learning  still  to  acquire.  In 
1835  his  campaign  biographer  rather  rejoiced  that  b.e 
had  so  little  systematic  education,  fearing  that  "  from 
the  eloquent  pages  of  Livy,  oi%  the  honeyed  eulogiums  of 
Virgil,  or  the  servile  adulation  of  Horace,  he  might  have 
been  inspired  with  an  admiration  for  regal  pomp  and 
aristocratic  dignity  uncongenial  to  the  native  indepen 
dence  of  his  mind,"  and  have  imbibed  a  *'  contempt  for 
plebeians  and  common  people,"  unless,  perhaps,  the 


14  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

speeches  of  popular  leaders  in  Livy  u  had  kindled  his  in 
stinctive  love  of  justice  and  freedom,"  or  the  sarcastic 
vigor  of  Tacitus  "  had  created  in  his  bosom  a  fixed 
hatred  of  tyranny  in  every  shape."  At  an  early  age, 
however,  it  is  certain  that  Van  Buren,  like  many  other 
Americans  of  original  force  and  with  instinctive  fondness 
for  written  pictures  of  human  history  and  conduct,  ac 
quired  an  education  which,  though  not  that  of  a  profes 
sional  scholar,  was  entirely  appropriate  to  the  skillful 
man  of  affairs  or  the  statesman  to  be  set  in  conspicuous 
places.  This  work  must  have  been  largely  done  during 
the  comparative  leisure  of  his  legal  apprenticeship. 

It  was  in  1796  that  he  entered  the  law  office  of 
Francis  Sylvester  at  Kinderhook,  where  he  remained 
until  his  twentieth  year.  He  there  read  law.  It  is  safe 
to  say  besides  that  he  swept  the  office,  lighted  the  fires 
in  winter,  and,  like  other  law  students  in  earlier  and 
simpler  days,  had  to  do  the  work  of  an  office  janitor  and 
errand  boy,  as  well  as  to  serve  papers  and  copy  the  tech 
nical  forms  of  the  common  law,  and  the  tedious  but  often 
masterly  pleadings  of  chancery.  That  his  work  as  a 
student  was  done  with  great  industry  and  thoroughness 
is  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  at  an  early  age  he  be 
came  a  successful  and  skillful  advocate  in  arguments  ad 
dressed  to  courts  as  distinguished  from  juries,  a  division 
of  professional  work  in  which  no  skill  and  readiness  will 
supply  deficiencies  in  professional  equipment.  His  early 
reputation  for  cleverness  is  illustrated  by  the  story  that 
when  only  a  boy  he  successfully  summed  up  a  case  before 
a  jury  against  his  preceptor  Sylvester,  being  made  by 
the  justice  to  stand  upon  a  bench  because  he  was  so 
small,  with  the  exhortation,  "  There,  Mat,  beat  your 
master." 


PROFESSIONAL  STUDY.  15 

In  1802  Van  Buren  entered  the  office  of  William  P. 
Van  Ness,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  to  complete  his 
seventh  and  final  year  of  legal  study.  Van  Ness  was 
himself  from  Columbia  county  and  an  eminent  lawyer. 
He  was  afterwards  appointed  United  States  district  judge 
by  Madison  ;  and  was  then  an  influential  Republican  and 
a  close  friend  and  defender  of  Aaron  Burr,  then  the 
vice-president.  The  native  powers  and  fascination  of 
Burr  were  at  their  zenith,  though  his  political  character 
was  blasted.  Van  Buren  made  his  acquaintance,  and 
was  treated  with  the  distinguished  and  flattering  atten 
tion  which  the  wisest  of  public  men  often  show  to  young 
men  of  promise.  Van  Buren's  enemies  were  absurdly 
fond  of  the  fancy  that  in  this  slight  intercourse  he  had 
acquired  the  skill  and  grace  of  his  manner,  and  the  easy 
principles  and  love  of  intrigue  which  they  ascribed  to 
him.  Burr,  for  years  after  he  was  utterly  disabled, 
inspired  a  childish  terror  in  American  politics.  The 
mystery  and  dread  about  him  were  used  by  the  oppo 
nents  of  Jackson  because  Burr  had  early  pointed  him  out 
for  the  presidency,  and  by  the  opponents  of  Clay  because 
in  early  life  he  had  given  Burr  professional  assistance. 
But  upon  Burr's  candidacy  for  governor  in  1804  Van 
Buren's  freedom  from  his  influence  was  clearly  enough 
exhibited. 

In  1803  Van  Buren,  being  now  of  age  and  admitted 
as  an  attorney,  returned  to  Kinderhook  and  there  began 
the  practice  of  his  profession.  The  rank  of  counsellor- 
at-law  was  still  distinct  and  superior  to  that  of  attorney. 
His  half-brother  on  his  mother's  side,  James  J.  Van 
Alen,  at  once  admitted  the  young  attorney  to  a  law  part 
nership.  Van  Alen  was  considerably  older  and  had  a 
practice  already  established.  Van  Buren's  career  as  a 


16  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

lawyer  was  not  a  long  one,  but  it  was  brilliant  and 
highly .  successful.  After  his  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate  in  1821  his  practice  ceased  to  be  very  ac 
tive.  He  left  his  profession  with  a  fortune  which  se 
cured  him  the  ease  in  money  matters  so  helpful  and 
almost  necessary  to  a  man  in  public  life.  Merely  pro 
fessional  reputations  disappear  with  curious  and  rather 
saddening  promptness  and  completeness.  Of  the  prac 
tice  and  distinction  reached  by  Van  Buren  before  he 
withdrew  from  the  bar,  although  they  were  unsurpassed 
in  the  state,  no  vestige  and  few  traditions  remain  be 
yond  technical  synopses  of  his  arguments  in  the  instruc 
tive  but  hardly  succulent  pages  of  Johnson's,  Wendell's, 
and  Co  wen's  reports. 

At  an  early  day  the  legal  profession  reached  in  our 
country  a  consummate  vigor.  Far  behind  as  Americans 
were  in  other  learning  and  arts,  they  had,  within  a  few 
years  after  they  escaped  colonial  dependence,  judges, 
advocates,  and  commentators  of  the  first  rank.  Mar 
shall,  Kent,  and  Story  were  securely  famous  when  hardly 
another  American  of  their  time  out  of  public  and  politi 
cal  life  was  known.  In  the  legal  art  Americans  were 
even  more  accomplished  than  in  its  science ;  and  Colum 
bia  county  and  the  valley  of  the  Hudson  were  fine  fields 
for  legal  practice.  Many  animosities  survived  from 
revolutionary  days.  The  landed  families,  long  used  to 
administer  the  affairs  of  others  as  well  as  their  own,  saw 
with  jealousy  and  fear  the  rapid  and  often  insolent 
spread  of  democratic  doctrines  and  of  leveling  manners. 
Political  feuds  were  rife,  and  frequently  appeared  in  the 
professionally  profitable  collisions  of  neighbors  with  va 
grant  cows,  or  on  watercourses  insufficient  for  the  needs 
of  the  up-stream  and  the  down -stream  proprietors. 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  17 

There  were  slander  suits  and  libel  suits,  and  suits  for 
malicious  prosecution.  Into  the  most  legitimate  con 
troversies  over  doubts  about  property  there  was  driven 
the  bitterness  which  turns  a  lawsuit  from  a  process 
to  ascertain  a  right  into  a  weapon  of  revenge. 

Van  Buren's  political  opinions  were  strong  and  clear 
from  the  beginning  of  his  law  practice  ;  but  he  was  in  a 
professional  minority  among  the  rich  Federalists  of  the 
county.  The  adverse  discipline  was  invaluable.  Through 
zeal  and  skill  and  large  industry,  he  soon  led  the  Repub 
licans  as  their  ablest  lawyer,  and  the  lawyers  of  Colum 
bia  county  were  famous.  William  W.  Van  Ness,  after 
wards  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  state,  Gros- 
venor,  Elisha  Williams,  and  Jacob  R.  Van  Rensselaer 
were  active  at  the  bar.  Williams,  although  his  very 
name  is  nowadays  hardly  known,  we  cannot  doubt  from 
the  universal  testimony  of  contemporaries,  had  extraor 
dinary  forensic  talents.  He  was  a  Federalist ;  and  the 
most  decisive  proof  of  Van  Buren's  rapid  professional 
growth  was  his  promotion  to  be  Williams's  chief  compet 
itor  and  adversary.  Van  Buren's  extraordinary  applica 
tion  and  intellectual  clearness  soon  established  him  as 
the  better  and  the  more  successful  lawyer,  though  not 
the  more  powerful  advocate.  Williams  at  last  said  to 
his  rival,  "  I  get  all  the  verdicts,  and  you  get  all  the 
judgments."  A  famous  pupil  of  Van  Buren  both  in  law 
and  in  politics,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  afterwards  attorney- 
general  in  his  cabinet,  finely  contrasted  them  from  his 
own  recollection  of  their  conflicts  when  he  was  a  law 
student.  "  Never,"  he  said,  "  were  two  men  more  dis 
similar.  Both  were  eloquent ;  but  the  eloquence  of  Wil 
liams  was  declamatory  and  exciting,  that  of  Van  Buren 
insinuating  and  delightful.  Williams  had  the  livelier 


18  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

imagination,  Van  Buren  the  sounder  judgment.  The 
former  presented  the  strong  points  of  his  case  in  bolder 
relief,  invested  them  in  a  more  brilliant  coloring,  indulged 
a  more  unlicensed  and  magnificent  invective,  and  gave 
more  life  and  variety  to  his  arguments  by  his  peculiar 
wit  and  inimitable  humor.  But  Van  Buren  was  his  su 
perior  in  analyzing,  arranging,  and  combining  the  insu 
lated  materials,  in  comparing  and  weighing  testimony,  in 
unraveling  the  web  of  intricate  affairs,  in  eviscerating 
truth  from  the  mass  of  diversified  and  conflicting  evi 
dence,  in  softening  the  heart  and  moulding  it  to  his  pur 
pose,  and  in  working  into  the  judgments  of  his  hearers 
the  conclusions  of  his  own  perspicuous  and  persuasive 
reasonings."  Most  of  this  is  applicable  to  Van  Buren 's 
career  on  the  wider  field  of  politics  ;  and  much  here  said 
of  his  early  adversary  on  the  tobacco-stained  floors  of 
country  court-houses  might  have  been  as  truly  said  of  a 
later  adversary  of  his,  the  splendid  leader  who,  rather 
than  Harrison,  ought  to  have  been  victor  over  Van 
Buren  in  1840,  and  over  whom  Van  Buren  rather  than 
Polk  ought  to  have  been  victor  in  1844. 

In  a  few  years  Van  Buren  outgrew  the  professional 
limitations  of  Kinderhook.  In  February,  1807,  he  had 
been  admitted  as  a  counsellor  of  the  supreme  court ; 
and  this  promotion  he  most  happily  celebrated  by  mar 
rying  Hannah  Hoes,  a  young  lady  of  his  own  age,  and 
also  of  Dutch  descent,  a  kinswoman  of  his  mother,  and 
with  whom  he  had  been  intimate  from  his  childhood. 
In  1808,  the  council  of  appointment  becoming  Republi 
can,  he  was  made  surrogate  of  Columbia  county,  suc 
ceeding  his  partner  and  half-brother  Van  Alen,  a  Fed 
eralist  in  politics,  who  was,  however,  returned  to  the 
place  in  1815,  when  the  Federalists  regained  the  coun- 


PROFESSIONAL   LIFE.  19 

cil.  The  office  was  a  respectable  one,  concerned  with 
the  probate  of  wills,  and  the  ordering  of  estates  of  de 
ceased  persons.  Within  a  year  after  this  appointment, 
Van  Buren  removed  to  the  new  and  bustling  little  city 
of  Hudson,  directly  on  the  river  banks.  Here  he  prac 
ticed  law  with  rapidly  increasing  success  for  seven  years. 
His  pecuniary  thrift  now  enabled  him  to  purchase  what 
was  called  "  a  very  extensive  and  well-selected  library." 
With  this  advantage  he  applied  himself  to  "  a  systematic 
and  extended  course  of  reading,"  which  left  him  a  well, 
even  an  amply,  educated  man.  His  severity  in  study 
did  not,  however,  exclude  him  from  the  social  pleasures 
of  which  he  was  fond,  and  for  which  he  was  perfectly 
fitted.  He  learned  men  quite  as  fast  as  he  learned 
books.  A  country  surrogate,  though  then  enjoying  fees, 
since  commuted  to  a  salary,  had  only  a  meagre  compen 
sation.  But  the  duties  of  Van  Buren's  office  did  not 
interfere  with  his  activity  in  the  private  practice  of  the 
law.  On  the  contrary,  the  office  enabled  him  to  extend 
his  acquaintances,  a  process  which,  even  without  adven 
titious  aid,  was  to  Van  Buren  easy  and  delightful. 

In  1813,  having  been  elected  a  member  of  the  senate 
of  the  state,  he  became  as  such  a  member  of  the  court 
for  the  correction  of  errors.  This  was  the  court  of  last 
resort,  composed,  until  1847,  of  the  chancellor,  the 
judges  of  the  supreme  court,  the  lieutenant-governor, 
and  the  thirty-two  senators.  The  latter,  though  often 
laymen,  were  members  of  the  court,  partly  through  a 
curious  imitation  of  the  theoretical  function  of  the  Brit 
ish  House  of  Lords,  and  partly  under  the  idea,  even 
now  feebly  surviving  in  some  states,  that  some  besides 
lawyers  ought  to  sit  upon  the  bench  in  law  courts  to  con 
tribute  the  common  sense  which  it  was  fancied  might  be 


20  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

absent  from  their  more  learned  associates.  It  was  not 
found  unsuitable  for  members  of  this,  the  highest  court, 
to  be  active  legal  practitioners.  While  Van  Buren  held 
his  place  as  a  member  he  was,  in  February,  1815,  made 
attorney-general,  succeeding  Abraham  Van  Vechten, 
one  of  the  famous  lawyers  of  the  state.  Van  Buren 
was  then  but  thirty-two  years  old,  and  the  professional 
eminence  accorded  to  the  station  was  greater  than  now. 
Among  near  predecessors  in  it  had  been  Aaron  Burr, 
Ambrose  Spencer  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmett ;  among 
his  near  successors  were  Thomas  J.  Oakley,  Samuel  A. 
Talcott,  Greene  C.  Bronson  and  Samuel  Beardsley,  — 
all  names  of  the  first  distinction  in  the  professional  life 
of  New  York.  The  office  was  of  course  political,  as  it 
has  always  been,  both  in  the  United  States  and  the 
mother  country.  But  Van  Buren's  appointment,  if  it 
were  made  because  he  was  an  active  and  influential 
Republican  in  politics,  would  still  not  have  been  made 
unless  his  professional  reputation  had  been  high.  The 
salary  was  $5.50  a  day,  with  some  costs,  —  not  an  un 
suitable  salary  in  days  when  the  chancellor  was  paid  but 
$3,000  a  year.  He  held  the  office  until  July,  1819, 
when,  upon  the  capture  of  the  council  of  appointment 
by  a  coalition  of  Clintonian  Republicans  and  Federalists, 
he  was  removed  to  give  place  to  Oakley,  the  Federalist 
leader  in  the  state  assembly. 

In  1816  Van  Buren,  now  rapidly  reaching  profes 
sional  eminence,  removed  to  Albany,  the  capital  of  New 
York.  Though  then  a  petty  city  of  mean  buildings  and 
about  10,000  inhabitants,  it  had  a  far  larger  relative  im 
portance  in  the  professional  and  social  life  of  the  state 
than  has  the  later  city  of  ten  times  the  population,  with 
its  costly  and  enormous  state-house,  its  beautiful  public 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  21 

buildings,  and  its  steep  and  numerous  streets  of  fine 
residences.  In  1820  he  purposed  removing  to  New 
York  ;  but,  for  some  reason  altering  his  plans,  continued 
to  reside  at  Albany  until  appointed  secretary  of  state  in 
1829.  His  professional  career  was  there  crowned  with 
most  important  and  lucrative  work.  Soon  after  mov 
ing  to  Albany,  he  took  into  partnership  Butler,  just  ad 
mitted  to  the  bar.  Between  the  two  men  there  were 
close  and  life-long  relations.  The  younger  of  them,  also 
a  son  of  Columbia  county,  reached  great  professional 
distinction,  became  a  politician  of  the  highest  type,  and 
remained  steadfast  in  his  attachment  to  Van  Buren's  po 
litical  fortunes,  and  to  the  robust  and  distinctly  marked 
political  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Albany  Regency. 
The  law  reports  give  illustrations  of  Van  Buren's  pre 
cision,  his  clear  and  forcible  common-sense,  and  his 
aptitude  for  that  learning  of  the  law  in  which  the  great 
counsel  of  the  time  excelled.  In  1813,  soon  after  his 
service  began  as  state  senator,  he  delivered  an  opinion 
in  a  case  of  "  escape  ;  "  and  in  very  courteous  words 
exhibited  a  bit  of  his  dislike  for  Kent,  then  chief  justice 
of  the  supreme  court,  whose  judgment  he  helped  to  re 
verse,  as  well  as  his  antipathy  to  imprisonment  for  debt, 
which  he  afterwards  helped  to  abolish.  It  was  a  petty 
suit  against  the  sureties  upon  the  bond  given  by  a 
debtor.  Under  a  relaxation  of  the  imprisonment  for 
debt  recently  permitted,  the  debtor  was,  on  giving  the 
bond,  released  from  jail,  but  upon  the  condition  that 
he  should  keep  within  the  "  jail  liberties,"  which  in  the 
country  counties  was  a  prescribed  area  around  the  jail. 
His  bond  was  to  be  forfeit  if  he  passed  the  "  liberties." 
While  the  debtor  was  driving  a  cow  to  or  from  pasture, 
the  latter  contemptuously  deviated  "  four,  six,  or  ten 


22  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

feet "  from  the  liberties.  The  driver,  yielding  to  inev 
itable  bucolic  impulse  and  forgetting  his  bond,  leaped 
over  the  imaginary  line  to  bring  back  the  cow.  He  was 
without  the  liberties  but  a  moment,  and  afterwards 
duly  kept  within  them.  But  the  creditor  was  watchful, 
and  for  the  technical  "  escape  "  sued  the  sureties.  Al 
though  the  debtor  was  within  the  limits  when  suit  was 
brought,  the  lower  court  refused  to  pardon  the  debtor's 
technical  and  unintentional  fault.  At  common  law  the 
creditor  was  entitled  to  satisfaction  of  the  debtor's 
body  ;  and  the  milder  statute  establishing  jail  liberties 
was,  the  court  said,  to  be  strictly  construed  against  the 
debtor  ;  it  was  not  enough  that  the  creditor  had  the 
debtor's  body  when  he  called  for  it.  The  supreme  court, 
headed  by  Kent,  affirmed  this  curiously  harsh  decision. 
In  the  court  of  errors,  Van  Buren  joined  Chancellor 
Lansing  in  reversing  the  rule  upon  an  elaborate  review 
of  the  law,  which  to  this  day  is  important  authority, 
and  which  could  not  have  been  more  carefully  done  had 
something  greater  seemed  at  stake  than  a  bovine  vagary 
and  a  few  dollars.  The  young  lawyer,  wearing  for  a 
time  the  judicial  robes,  now  sat  in  a  review,  by  no 
means  unpleasant,  of  the  utterances  of  magistrates  be 
fore  whom  he  had  until  then  stood  in  considerable  awe  ; 
and  seized  the  opportunity,  doubtless  with  a  keen  per 
ception  of  the  drift  of  popular  sentiment  on  matters  of 
personal  liberty,  to  enlarge  the  mild  policy  of  the  later 
law.  When  it  was  urged  that,  if  the  law  were  not 
technically  administered,  imprisoned  debtors  would  of 
a  Sunday  wander  beyond  the  "  limits,"  securely  able  to 
return  before  Monday,  when  the  creditor  could  sue,  — 
Van  Buren,  with  a  contemptuous  fling  at  the  supreme 
court,  confessed  in  Johnsonian  sentences  his  lenient  tern- 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  23 

per  towards  these  "  stolen  pleasures,"  —  his  willingness 
that  debtors  should  snatch  the  "  few  moments  of  liberty 
which,  although  soured  by  constant  perturbation  and 
alarm,  are,  notwithstanding,  deemed  fit  subjects  for 
judicial  animadversion."  His  rhetoric  was  rather  agree 
ably  florid  when  he  declared  the  law  establishing  "  jail 
liberties  "  to  be  a  concession  for  humane  purposes  made 
by  the  inflexible  spirit  which  authorized  imprisonment 
for  debt.  He  strongly  intimated  his  sympathy  to  be 
with  "  the  exertions  of  men  of  intelligence,  reflection, 
and  philanthropy  to  mitigate  its  rigor;  of  men  who 
viewed  it  as  a  practice  fundamentally  wrong,  a  practice 
which  forces  their  fellow-creatures  from  society,  from 
their  friends,  and  their  agonized  families  into  the  dreary 
walls  of  a  prison ;  which  compels  them  to  leave  all 
those  fascinating  endearments  to  become  an  inmate  with 
vermin  ;"  and  all  this,  not  for  crime  or  frauds,  "  but 
for  the  misfortune  of  being  poor,  of  being  unable  to 
satisfy  the  all-digesting  stomach  of  some  ravenous  cred 
itor."  The  practice  was  one  "  confounding  virtue  and 
vice,  and  destroying  the  distinction  between  guilt  and 
innocence  which  should  unceasingly  be  cherished  in 
every  well-regulated  government."  Democrats  rejoiced 
over  this  passage  when  Van  Buren  was  a  candidate  for 
the  presidency.  Richard  M.  Johnson,  then  his  associate 
upon  the  Democratic  ticket,  had  successfully  led  an  agi 
tation  for  the  abolition  of  such  imprisonment  upon 
judgments  rendered  in  the  federal  courts. 

Van  Buren's  professional  life  terminated  with  his 
election  as  governor  in  1828.  In  1830,  while  secretary 
of  state  at  Washington,  he  is  said  to  have  appeared 
before  the  federal  supreme  court  in  the  great  litigation 
between  Astor  and  the  Sailors'  Snug  Harbor,  in  which 


24  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

he  had  been  counsel  below ;  but  no  record  is  preserved  of 
his  argument  there.  His  last  well-known  argument  was 
before  the  court  of  errors  at  Albany  in  Varick  v.  Jack 
son,  a  branch  of  the  famous  Medcef  Eden  litigation. 
This  long  and  highly  technical  battle  was  lighted  up  by 
the  fame  and  competitions  of  the  counsel.  It  arose  upon 
the  question  whether  a  will  of  Eden  which  gave  a  landed 
estate  to  his  son  Joseph,  but  if  Joseph  died  without 
children,  then  to  his  surviving  brother,  Medcef  Eden  the 
younger,  created  for  Joseph  the  old  lawyers'  delight  of 
an  "  estate  tail."  If  it  were  an  "  estate  tail,"  then  the 
law  of  1782,  which,  in  the  general  tendency  of  American 
legislation  after  the  Revolution,  was  directed  against  the 
entailing  of  property,  would  have  made  the  first  brother 
Joseph  the  absolute  owner,  and  have  defeated  the  later 
claim  of  Medcef.  For  Joseph  had  failed  while  in  pos 
session  of  the  property.  His  creditors,  accepting  the 
opinion  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  then  the  head  of  the 
bar,  insisted  that  he  had  been  the  absolute  owner,  that 
the  provision  for  his  brother  Medcef's  accession  to  the 
property  was  nugatory  as  an  attempt  to  entail  the  estate  ; 
and  upon  this  view  the  creditors  sold  the  lands,  which 
by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  city  soon  became  of  large 
value.  Hamilton's  opinion  for  years  daunted  the  younger 
Medcef  and  his  children  from  asserting  the  right  which 
it  was  morally  plain  his  father  had  intended  for  him. 
Aaron  Burr,  not  less  Hamilton's  rival  at  the  bar  than  in 
the  politics  of  New  York,  gave  a  contrary  opinion  ;  but 
after  killing  Hamilton  in  1804  and  yielding  up  the  vice- 
presidency  in  1805,  his  brilliant  professional  gifts  were 
exiled  from  New  York.  On  his  return  in  1812  from 
years  of  conspiracy,  adventure,  and  romance,  he  took  up 
the  discredited  Medcef  Eden  claim ;  and  in  the  judicial 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  25 

test  of  the  question  he,  and  not  Hamilton,  proved  to  have 
been  correct.  The  struggle  went  on  in  a  number  of 
suits ;  and  when  in  1823  the  question  was  to  be  finally 
settled  in  the  court  of  last  resort,  Burr,  fearing,  as  he 
himself  intimated  to  the  court,  lest  the  profound  suspicion 
under  which  he  rested  might  obscure  and  break  the  force 
of  his  legal  arguments,  or  conscious  that  his  past  twenty 
years  had  dimmed  his  faculties,  called  to  his  aid  Van 
Buren,  then  United  States  senator  and  a  chief  of  the 
profession.  As  Van  Buren  and  Burr  attended  together 
before  the  court  of  errors,  they  doubtless  recalled  their 
meetings  in  Van  Ness's  office  twenty  years  before,  when 
Burr,  still  a  splendid  though  clouded  figure  in  American 
life,  hoped,  by  Federalist  votes  added  to  the  Republican 
secession  which  he  led,  to  reach  the  governorship  and 
recover  his  prestige  ;  those  days  in  which  the  unknown 
but  promising  young  countryman  had  interested  a  vice- 
president  and  enjoyed  the  latter's  skillful  and  not  al 
ways  insincere  flattery.  The  firm  and  orderly  procedure 
of  Van  Buren's  life  was  now  well  contrasted  with  the 
discredited  and  profligate  ability  of  the  returned  wan 
derer.  Against  this  earlier  but  long  deposed,  and 
against  this  later  and  regnant  chief  in  the  Republican 
politics  of  New  York,  were  ranged  in  these  cases  David 
B.  Ogden,  the  famous  lawyer  of  the  Federalist  ranks, 
Samuel  A.  Talcott,  and  Samuel  Jones.  In  Van  Buren's 
long,  masterly,  and  successful  argument  there  was  again 
an  edge  to  the  zeal  with  which  he  attacked  the  opinion 
of  Kent,  the  Federalist  chancellor,  who  asked  the  court 
of  errors  to  overrule  its  earlier  decisions,  and  the  chan 
cellor's  own  decision  as  well,  and  defeat  the  intention  of 
the  elder  Medcef  Eden. 

Van  Buren's  professional  career  was  most  enviable. 


26  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

It  lasted  twenty-five  years.  It  ended  before  he  was 
forty-six,  when  he  was  in  the  early  ripeness  of  his 
powers,  but  not  until  a  larger  and  more  shining  career 
seemed  surely  opened  before  him.  He  left  the  bar  with 
a  competence  fairly  earned,  which  his  prudence  and  skill 
made  grow  into  an  ample  fortune,  without  even  mali 
cious  suggestion  in  the  scurrility  of  politics  that  he  had 
profited  out  of  public  offices.  In  money  matters  he  was 
more  thrifty  and  cautious  than  are  most  Americans  in 
public  places.  His  enemies  accused  him  of  meanness 
and  parsimony,  but  apparently  without  other  reason  than 
that  he  did  not  practice  the  careless  and  useless  profu 
sion  and  luxury  which  many  of  his  countrymen  in  politi 
cal  life  have  thought  necessary  to  indulge  even  when 
their  own  tastes  were  far  simpler.  In  the  course  of 
professional  employment  he  acquired  an  important  es 
tate  near  Oswego,  whose  value  rapidly  enhanced  with 
the  rapid  growth  of  western  New  York  and  the  develop 
ment  of  the  lake  commerce  from  that  port. 

The  chief  interest  now  found  in  Van  Buren's  profes 
sional  career  lies  in  its  relation  to  his  political  life.  He 
was  the  only  lawyer  of  conspicuous  and  practical  and 
really  great  professional  success  who  has  reached  the 
White  House.  In  the  long  preparation  for  the  bar,  in 
the  many  hours  of  leisure  at  Kinderhook  and  Hudson 
and  even  Albany  permitted  by  the  methods  of  practice 
in  vogue  before  there  were  railways  or  telegraphs,  and 
when  travel  was  costly  and  slow  and  postage  a  shilling  or 
more,  he  gained  the  liberal  education  more  difficult  of 
access  to  the  busier  young  attorney  and  counsel  of  these 
crowded  days.  Great  lawyers  were  then  fond  of  illus 
trations  from  polite  literature  ;  they  loved  to  set  off  their 
speeches  with  quotations  from  the  classics,  and  to  give 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  27 

their  style  finish  and  ornament  not  practicable  to  the  pre 
cise,  prompt  methods  which  their  successors  learn  in  the 
driving  routine  of  modern  American  cities.  Van  Buren 
did  not,  however,  become  a  great  orator  at  the  bar.  His 
admirer,  Butler,  upon  returning  to  partnership  with  him 
in  1820,  wrote  indeed  to  an  intimate  friend,  Jesse  Hoyt 
(destined  afterwards  to  bring  grief  and  scandal  upon 
both  the  partners),  that  if  he  were  Van  Buren  he 
"  would  let  politics  alone,"  and  become,  as  Van  Buren 
might,  the  "  Erskine  of  the  state."  But  though  his  suc 
cess,  had  he  continued  in  the  profession,  would  doubtless 
have  been  of  the  very  first  order,  his  oratory  would 
never  have  reached  the  warm  and  virile  splendor  of 
Erskine,  or  the  weighty  magnificence  of  Webster.  Van 
Buren's  work  as  a  lawyer  brought  him,  however,  some 
thing  besides  wealth  and  the  education  and  refinement  of 
books,  and  something  which  neither  Erskine  nor  Web 
ster  gained.  The  profession  afforded  him  an  admirable 
discipline  in  the  conduct  of  affairs ;  and  affairs,  in  the 
law  as  out  of  it,  are  largely  decided  by  human  nature 
and  its  varying  peculiarities.  The  preparation  of  de 
tails  ;  the  keen  and  far-sighted  arrangement  of  the  best, 
because  the  most  practicable,  plan ;  the  refusal  to  fire 
off  ammunition  for  the  popular  applause  to  be  roused 
by  its  noise  and  flame ;  the  clear,  steady  bearing  in 
mind  of  the  end  to  be  accomplished,  rather  than  the 
prolonged  enjoyment  or  systematic  working  out  of  inter 
mediate  processes  beyond  a  utilitarian  necessity,  —  all 
these  elements  Van  Buren  mastered  in  a  signal  degree, 
and  made  invaluable  in  legal  practice.  To  men  more 
superbly  equipped  for  tours  de  force,  who  ignored  the 
uses  of  long,  attentive,  varied,  painstaking  work,  there 
was  nothing  admirable  in  the  methods  which  Van  Buren 


28  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

brought  into  political  life  out  of  his  experience  in  the 
law.  He  was,  to  undisciplined  or  envious  opponents,  a 
"  little  magician,"  a  trickster.  The  same  thing  appears, 
in  every  department  of  human  activity,  in  the  anger 
which  failure  often  flings  at  success. 

The  predominance  of  lawyers  in  our  politics  was  very 
early  established,  and  has  been  a  characteristic  distinc 
tion  between  the  politics  of  England  and  of  America. 
Conspicuous  as  lawyers  have  been  in  the  politics  of  the 
older  country,  they  have  rarely  been  figures  of  the  first 
rank.  They  have  served  in  all  its  modern  ministries, 
and  sometimes  in  other  than  professional  stations ; 
but,  with  the  unimportant  exception  of  Perceval,  not  as 
the  chief.  English  opinion  has  not  unjustly  believed 
its  greater  landed  proprietors  to  be  animated  with  a 
strong  and  peculiar  desire  for  English  greatness  and 
renown  ;  nor  has  the  belief  been  destroyed  by  their  fre 
quent  opposition  to  the  most  beneficent  popular  move 
ments.  Among  these  proprietors  and  those  allied  with 
them,  even  when  not  strictly  in  their  ranks,  England 
has  found  her  statesmen.  To  this  day,  the  speech  of  a 
lawyer  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  is  fancied  to 
show  the  narrowness  of  technical  training,  or  is  treated 
as  a  bid  for  promotion  to  some  of  the  splendid  seats 
open  to  the  English  bar.  In  America,  the  great  landed 
proprietor  very  early  lost  the  direction  of  public  affairs. 
All  the  members  of  the  "  Virginian  dynasty  "  were,  it 
is  true,  large  land-owners,  and  in  the  politics  of  New 
York  there  were  several  of  them.  But  land-ownership 
was  to  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe  simply  a  means 
of  support  while  they  attended  to  public  affairs ;  it  was 
not  one  of  their  chief  recommendations  to  the  landed 
interest  throughout  the  country.  For  a  time  in  the 


LAWYERS  IN  PUBLIC  LIFE.  29 

early  politics  of  New  York  the  landed  wealth  of  the 
Schuylers,  Van  Rensselaers,  and  Livingstons  was  of  itself 
a  source  of  strength  ;  but  in  the  spread  of  democratic 
sentiment  it  was  found  that  to  be  a  great  landlord  was 
entirely  consistent  with  dullness,  narrowness,  and  timid 
selfishness.  Among  the  landlords  there  soon  and  inevi 
tably  decayed  that  sense  of  public  obligation  belonging  to 
exalted  position  and  leadership  which  sometimes  brings 
courage,  high  public  spirit,  and  even  a  sound  and  active 
political  imagination,  to  those  who  preside  over  bodies 
of  tenants.  The  laws  were  changed  which  facilitated 
family  accumulations  of  land.  Since  these  early  years 
of  the  century  a  great  land-owner  has  been  in  politics 
little  more  than  any  other  rich  man.  Both  have  had 
advantages  in  that  as  in  any  other  field  of  activity. 
Certain  easy  graces  not  uncommon  to  inherited  wealth 
have  often  been  popular,  —  not,  however,  for  the  wealth, 
but  for  themselves.  Where  these  graces  have  existed 
in  America  without  such  wealth,  they  have  been  none 
the  less  popular  ;  but  in  England  a  lifetime  of  vast  pub 
lic  service  and  the  finest  personal  attainments  have 
failed  to  overcome  the  distrust  of  a  landless  man  as  a 
sort  of  adventurer. 

When  Van  Buren's  career  began,  the  men  who  were 
making  money  in  trade  or  manufactures  were  generally 
too  busy  for  the  anxious  and  busy  cares  of  public  life  ; 
the  tradesmen  and  manufacturers  who  had  already  made 
money  were  past  the  time  of  life  when  men  can  vigor 
ously  and  skillfully  turn  to  a  new  and  strange  calling. 
There  was  no  leisure  class  except  land-owners  or  re 
tired  men  of  business.  Lawyers,  far  more  than  those 
of  any  other  calling,  became  public  men,  and  naturally 
enough.  Their  experience  of  life  and  their  knowledge 


30  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

of  men  were  large.  The  popular  interest  in  their  art  of 
advocacy;  their  travels  from  county  seat  !o  county  seat; 
their  speeches  to  juries  in  towns  where  no  other  secular 
public  speaking  was  to  be  heard  ;  the  varieties  of  human 
life  which  they  came  to  know,  —  varieties  far  greater 
where  the  same  men  acted  as  attorneys  and  advocates 
than  in  England  where  they  act  in  only  one  of  these 
fields,  —  these  and  the  like,  combined  with  the  equip 
ment  for  the  forms  of  political  and  governmental  work 
which  was  naturally  gained  in  legal  practice  and  the 
sytematic  study  of  law,  gave  to  distinguished  lawyers 
in  America  their  large  place  in  its  political  life.  For 
this  place  the  liberality  of  their  lives  helped,  besides,  to 
fit  them.  They  had  ceased  to  be  disqualified  for  it  by 
their  former  close  alliance,  as  in  England,  with  the 
landed  aristocracy  ;  and  they  had  not  yet  begun  to  suffer 
a  disqualification,  frequently  unjust,  for  their  close  rela 
tions  with  corporate  interests,  between  which  and  the 
public  there  often  arises  an  antagonism  of  interests. 
De  Tocqueville,  after  his  visit  in  1832,  said  that  law 
yers  formed  in  America  its  highest  political  class  and 
the  most  cultivated  circle  of  society  ;  that  the  American 
aristocracy  was  not  composed  of  the  rich,  but  that  it 
occupied  the  judicial  bench  and  the  bar.  And  the  de 
scriptions  of  the  liberal  and  acute  though  theoretical 
Frenchman  are  generally  trustworthy,  however  often 
his  striking  generalizations  are  at  fault.  Such,  then, 
was  the  intimacy  of  relations  between  the  professions  of 
law  and  politics  when  Van  Buren  shone  in  both.  And 
when,  in  his  early  prime,  he  gave  up  the  law,  neither 
forensic  habits  nor  those  of  the  attorney  were  yet  too 
strongly  set  to  permit  the  easy  and  complete  diversion 
of  his  powers  to  the  more  generous  and  exalted  activity 
of  public  life. 


PROFESSIONAL  LIFE.  31 

It  is  simpler  thus  separately  to  treat  Van  Buren's  life 
as  a  lawyer,  because  in  a  just  view  of  the  man  it  must 
be  subordinate  to  his  life  as  a  politician.  It  is  to  be 
remembered,  however,  that  in  his  earlier  years  his  pro 
gress  in  politics  closely  attended  in  time,  and  in  much 
more  than  time,  his  professional  progress.  When,  at 
thirty,  he  sat  as  an  appellate  judge  in  the  court  of 
errors,  he  was  already  powerful  in  politics ;  when,  at 
thirty-two,  he  was  attorney-general,  he  was  the  leader 
of  his  party  in  the  state  senate  ;  when,  at  forty-five,  he 
had  perhaps  the  most  lucrative  professional  practice  in 
New  York,  he  was  the  leader  of  his  party  in  the  United 
States  senate.  But  it  will  be  easier  to  follow  his  politi 
cal  career  without  interruption  from  his  work  as  a  law 
yer,  honorable  and  distinguished  as  it  was,  and  much  of 
his  political  ability  as  he  owed  to  its  fine  discipline. 

Van  Buren's  domestic  life  was  broken  up  by  the 
death  of  his  wife  at  Albany,  in  February,  1819,  leaving 
him  four  sons.  To  her  memory  Van  Buren  remained 
scrupulously  loyal  until  his  own  death  forty-three  years 
afterwards.  We  may  safely  believe  political  enemies 
when,  after  saying  of  him  many  dastardly  things,  they 
admitted  that  he  had  been  an  affectionate  husband. 
Nor  were  accusations  ever  made  against  the  uprightness 
and  purity  of  his  private  life. 


CHAPTER  III. 

STATE  SENATOR  ;  ATTORNEY-GENERAL  ;  MEMBER  OF  THE 
CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION. 

THE  politics  of  New  York  state  were  never  more 
bitter,  never  more  personal,  than  when  Van  Buren  en 
tered  the  field  in  1803.  The  Federalists  were  sheltered 
by  the  unique  and  noble  prestige  of  Washington's  name  ; 
and  were  conscious  that  in  wealth,  education,  refine 
ment,  they  far  excelled  the  Republicans.  They  were 
contemptuously  suspicious  of  the  unlettered  ignorance, 
the  intense  and  exuberant  vanity,  of  the  masses  of 
American  men.  It  was  by  that  contempt  and  suspicion 
that  they  invited  the  defeat  which,  protected  though  they 
were  by  the  property  qualifications  required  of  voters 
in  New  York,  they  met  in  1800  at  the  hands  of  a  peo 
ple  in  whom  the  instincts  of  democracy  were  strong  and 
unsubmissive.  This  was  in  our  history  the  one  complete 
and  final  defeat  of  a  great  national  party  while  in  power. 
The  Federalists  themselves  made  it  final,  —  by  their 
silly  and  unworthy  anger  at  a  political  reverse ;  by  their 
profoundly  immoral  efforts  to  thwart  the  popular  will 
and  make  Burr  president ;  by  their  fatal  and  ingrained 
disbelief  in  common  men%  who,  they  thought,  foolishly 
and  impiously  refused  to  accept  wisdom  and  guidance 
from  the  possessors  of  learning  and  great  estates  ;  and 
finally  by  their  unpatriotic  opposition  to  Jefferson  and 
Madison  in  the  assertion  of  American  rights  on  the  seas 


EARLY  POLITICS  IN  NEW   YORK.  33 

during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  All  these  drove  the  party, 
in  spite  of  its  large  services  in  the  past  and  its  eminent 
capacity  for  service  in  the  future,  forever  from  the  con 
fidence  of  the  American  people.  The  Federalists  main 
tained,  it  is  true,  a  party  organization  in  New  York  until 
after  the  second  war  with  England;  but  their  efforts 
were  rather  directed  to  the  division  and  embarrassment 
of  their  adversaries  than  to  victories  of  their  own 
strength  or  upon  their  own  policy.  They  carried  the 
lower  house  of  the  legislature  in  1809,  1812,  and  1813. 
There  were  among  them  men  of  the  first  rank,  who  re 
tained  a  strong  hold  on  popular  respect,  among  whom 
John  Jay  and  Rufus  King  were  deservedly  shining  fig 
ures.  But  never  after  1799  did  the  Federalists  elect 
in  New  York  a  governor,  or  control  both  legislative 
houses,  or  secure  any  solid  power  except  by  coalition 
with  one  branch  or  another  of  the  Republicans. 

Van  Buren's  fondness  for  politics  was  soon  de 
veloped.  His  father  was  firmly  attached  to  the  Jeffer- 
sonians  or  Republicans,  —  a  rather  discredited  minority 
among  the  Federalists  of  Columbia  county  and  the 
estates  of  the  Hudson  River  aristocracy.  Inheriting  his 
political  preferences,  Van  Buren,  with  a  great  body  of 
other  young  Americans,  caught  the  half-doctrinaire  en 
thusiasm  which  Jefferson  then  inspired,  an  enthusiasm 
which  in  Van  Buren  was  to  be  so  enduring  a  force,  and 
to  which  sixty  years  later  he  was  still  as  loyal  as  he 
had  been  in  the  hot  disputes  on  the  sanded  floors  of  the 
village  store  or  tavern.  During  these  boyish  years  he 
wrote  and  spoke  for  his  party  ;  and  before  he  was  eigh 
teen  he  was  formally  appointed  a  delegate  to  a  Republi 
can  convention  for  Columbia  and  Rensselaer  counties. 

Van    Buren   returned  from  New  York  to  Columbia 


34  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

county  late  in  1803,  just  twenty-one  years  old.  At 
once  he  became  active  in  politics.  The  Republican 
party,  though  not  strong  in  his  county,  was  dominant 
in  the  state ;  and  the  game  of  politics  was  played  be 
tween  its  different  factions,  the  Federalists  aiding  one 
or  the  other  as  they  saw  their  advantage.  The  Repub 
licans  were  Clintonians,  Livingstonians,  or  Burrites. 
George  Clinton,  in  whose  career  lay  the  great  origin  of 
party  politics  of  New  York,  was  the  Republican  leader. 
The  son  of  an  Irish  immigrant,  he  had,  without  the  aid 
of  wealth  or  influential  connections,  made  himself  the 
most  popular  man  in  the  State.  He  .was  the  first  gover 
nor  after  colonial  days  were  over,  and  was  repeatedly 
reflected.  It  was  his  opposition  which  most  seriously 
endangered  New  York's  adoption  of  the  Federal  Con 
stitution.  But  in  spite  of  the  wide  enthusiasm  which 
the  completed  Union  promptly  aroused,  this  opposition 
did  not  prevent  his  reelection  in  1789  and  1792.  The 
majorities  were  small  however,  it  being  even  doubtful 
whether  in  the  latter  year  the  majority  were  fairly  given 
him.  In  1795  he  declined  to  be  a  candidate,  and  Rob 
ert  R.  Livingston,  the  Republican  in  his  place,  was  de 
feated.  In  1801  Clinton  was  again  elected.  Later  he 
was  vice-president  in  Jefferson's  second  term  and  Madi 
son's  first  term  ;  and  his  aspiration  to  the  presidency  in 
1808  was  by  no  means  unreasonable.  He  was  a  strong 
party  leader  and  a  sincerely  patriotic  man.  The  Living 
ston  family  interest  in  New  York  was  very  great. 
The  chancellor,  Robert  R.  Livingston,  who  nowadays 
is  popularly  associated  with  the  ceremony  of  Washing 
ton's  inauguration,  had .  been  secretary  for  foreign  af 
fairs  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  had  left 
the  Federalists  in  1790.  After  his  sixty  years  had 


EARLY  POLITICS  IN  NEW   YORK.  35 

under  the  law  disqualified  him  for  judicial  office,  he  be 
came  Jefferson's  minister  to  France  and  negotiated  with 
Bonaparte  the  Louisiana  treaty.  Brockholst  Livingston 
was  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of  New  York  in  1801. 
In  1807  Jefferson  promoted  him  to  the  federal  supreme 
court.  Edward  Livingston,  younger  than  his  brother, 
the  chancellor,  by  seventeen  years,  was  long  after  to  be 
one  of  the  finest  characters  in  our  politics.  Early  in 
Washington's  administration  he  had  become  a  strong 
pro-French  Republican,  and  had  opposed  Jay's  treaty 
with  Great  Britain  ;  though  forty  years  later,  when 
Jackson  brought  him  from  Louisiana  to  be  secretary  of 
state,  he  was  sometimes  reminded  of  his  still  earlier 
Federalism.  Morgan  Lewis,  judge  of  the  supreme 
court  and  afterwards  chief  justice,  and  still  later  gover 
nor,  was  a  brother-in-law  of  the  chancellor.  Smith 
Thompson,  also  a  judge  and  chief  justice,  and  later  sec 
retary  of  the  navy  under  Monroe  and  a  judge  of  the 
federal  supreme  court,  and  Van  Buren's  competitor  for 
governor  in  1828,  was  a  connection  of  the  family.  There 
were  sneers  at  the  Livingston  conversion  to  Democracy 
as  there  always  are  at  political  conversions.  But  whe 
ther  or  not  Chancellor  Livingston's  Democracy  came 
from  jealousy  of  Hamilton  in  1790,  it  is  at  least  cer 
tain  that  he  and  his  family  connections  rendered  politi 
cal  services  of  the  first  importance  during  a  half  cen 
tury.  The  drafting  of  Jackson's  nullification  proclama 
tion  in  1833  by  Edward  Livingston  was  one  of  the  most 
signal  and  noblest  services  which  any  American  has  had 
the  fortune  to  render  to  the  country. 

The  best  offices  were  largely  held  by  the  Clinton 
and  Livingston  families  and  their  connections,  an  ar 
rangement  very  aristocratic  indeed,  but  which  did  not 


86  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

then  seenv-inconsistent  with  efficient  and  decorous  per 
formance  of  the  public  business.  Burr  naturally  gath 
ered  around  him  those  restless,  speculative  men  who 
are  as  immoral  in  their  aspirations  as  in  their  conduct, 
and  whose  adherence  has  disgraced  and  weakened  al 
most  every  democratic  movement  known  to  history. 
Burr  had  been  attorney-general ;  he  had  refused  a  seat 
in  the  supreme  court ;  he  had  been  United  States  sena 
tor  ;  and  now  in  the  second  office  of  the  nation  presided 
with  distinguished  grace  over  the  federal  senate.  His 
hands  were  not  yet  red  with  Hamilton's  blood  when 
Van  Buren  met  him  at  New  York  in  1803  ;  but  Demo 
cratic  faces  were  averted  from  the  man  who,  loaded 
with  its  honors  and  enjoying  its  confidence,  had  in 
trigued  with  its  enemies  to  cheat  his  exultant  party  out 
of  their  choice  for  president.  In  tribute  to  the  Republi 
cans  of  New  York,  George  Clinton  had  already  been 
selected  in  his  place  to  be  the  next  vice-president. 
While  Van  Buren  was  near  the  close  of  his  law  studies 
at  New  York,  Burr  was  preparing  to  restore  his  for 
tunes  by  a  popular  election,  for  which  he  had  some  Re 
publican  support,  and  to  which  the  fatuity  of  the  de 
feated  party,  again  rejecting  Hamilton's  advice,  added 
a  considerable  Federalist  support.  William  P.  Van 
Ness,  as  "  Aristides,"  one  of  the  classical  names  under 
which  our  ancestors  were  fond  of  addressing  the  public, 
had  in  the  Burr  interest  written  a  bitter  attack  on  the 
Clintons  and  Livingstons,  accusing  them,  and  with  rea 
son,  of  dividing  the  offices  between  themselves. 

Van  Buren  was  easily  proof  against  the  allurements  of 
Burr,  and  even  the  natural  influence  of  so  distinguished 
a  man  as  Van  Ness,  with  whom  he  had  been  studying  a 
year.  Sylvester,  his  first  preceptor,  was  a  Federalist. 


EARLY  POLITICS  IN  NEW   YORK.  37 

So  was  Van  Alen,  his  half-brother,  soon  to  be  his  partner, 
who  in  May,  1806,  was  elected  to  Congress.  But  Van 
Buren  was  firm  and  resolute  in  party  allegiance.  In  the 
election  for  governor  in  April,  1804,  Burr  was  badly 
beaten  by  Morgan  Lewis,  the  Clinton-Livingston  candi 
date,  whom  Van  Buren  warmly  supported,  and  Burr's 
political  career  was  closed.  The  successful  majority  of 
the  Republicans  was  soon  resolved  into  the  Clintonians, 
led  by  Clinton  and  Judge  Ambrose  Spencer,  and  the 
Livingstonians,  led  by  Governor  Lewis.  The  active 
participation  of  judges  in  the  bitter  politics  of  the  time 
illustrates  the  universal  intensity  of  political  feeling,  and 
goes  very  far  to  justify  Jefferson's  and  Van  Buren's 
distrust  of  judicial  opinions  on  political  questions. 
Brockholst  Livingston,  Smith  Thompson,  Ambrose 
Spencer,  Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  —  all  judges  of  the  state 
supreme  court,  —  did  not  cease  when  they  donned  the 
ermine  to  be  party  politicians  ;  neither  did  the  chancel 
lors  Robert  R.  Livingston  and  Lansing.  Even  Kent, 
it  is  pretty  obvious,  was  a  man  of  far  stronger  and 
more  openly  partisan  feelings  than  we  should  to-day 
think  fitting  so  great  a  judicial  station  -as  he  held.  The 
quarrels  over  offices  were  strenuous  and  increasing  from 
the  very  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  community. 

The  Federalists  in  1807  generally  joined  the  Lewis 
ites,  or  "Quids."  Governor  Lewis,  finding  that  the 
jealousy  of  the  Livingston  interest  would  defeat  his  re- 
nomination  by  the  usual  caucus  of  Republican  members 
of  the  legislature,  became  the  candidate  of  a  public 
meeting  at  New  York,  and  of  a  minority  caucus,  and 
asked  help  from  the  Federalists.  Such  an  alliance  al 
ways  seemed  monstrous  only  to  the  Republican  faction 
that  felt  strong  enough  without  it.  The  regular  legis- 


88  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

lative  caucus,  controlled  by  the  Clintonians,  nominated 
Daniel  D.  Tompkins,  then  a  judge  of  the  supreme 
court,  and  for  years  after  the  Republican  "  war-horse." 
Van  Buren  adhered  to  the  purer,  older,  and  less  patri 
cian  democracy  of  the  Clintonians.  Tompkins  was 
elected,  with  a  Clintonian  legislature  ;  and  the  result 
secured  Van  Buren's  first  appointment  to  public  office. 
A  Clintonian  council  of  appointment  was  chosen.  The 
council,  a  complex  monument  of  the  distrust  of  execu 
tive  power  with  which  George  III.  had  filled  his  re 
volted  subjects,  was  composed  of  five  members,  being 
the  governor  and  one  member  from  each  of  the  four 
senatorial  districts,  who  were  chosen  by  the  assembly 
from  among  the  six  senators  of  the  district.  The  four 
senatorial  members  of  the  council  were  always,  there 
fore,  of  the  political  faith  of  the  assembly,  except  in 
cases  where  all  the  senators  from  a  district  belonged  to 
the  minority  party  in  the  assembly.  To  this  council 
belonged  nearly  every  appointment  in  the  state,  even  of 
local  officers.  Prior  to  1801  the  governor  appointed, 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  council.  After  the 
constitutional  amendment  of  that  year,  either  member 
of  the  council  could  nominate,  the  appointment  being 
made  by  the  majority.  Van  Buren  became  surrogate 
of  Columbia  county  on  February  20,  1808.  There  was 
no  prescribed  term  of  office,  the  commission  really  run 
ning  until  the  opposition  party  secured  the  council  of 
appointment.  Van  Buren  held  the  office  about  five 
years  and  until  his  removal  on  March  19,  1813,  when 
his  adversaries  had  secured  control  of  the  council. 

At  this  time  the  system  of  removing  the  lesser  as  well 
as  the  greater  officers  of  government  for  political  rea 
sons  was  well  established  in  New  York.  It  is  impos- 


RISE    OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM.  39 

sible  to  realize  the  nature  of  Van  Buren's  political 
education  without  understanding  this  old  system  of 
proscription,  whose  influence  upon  American  public  life 
has  been  so  prodigious.  The  strife  over  the  Federal 
Constitution  had  been  fierce.  Its  friends,  after  their 
victory,  sought,  neither  unjustly  nor  unnaturally,  to 
punish  Governor  Clinton  for  his  opposition.  Although 
"Washington  wished  to  stand  neutral  between  parties,  he 
still  believed  it  politically  suicidal  to  appoint  officers  not 
in  sympathy  with  his  administration.1  Hamilton  un 
doubtedly  determined  the  New  York  appointments  when 
the  new  government  was  launched,  and  they  were  made 
from  the  political  enemies  of  Governor  Clinton,  —  a 
course  provoking  an  animosity  which  not  improbably 
appeared  in  the  more  numerous  state  appointments  con 
trolled  by  Clinton  and  the  Republican  council.  After 
the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution  the  Republicans 
were  denounced  as  Jacobins  and  radicals,  dangerous  in 
politics  and  corrupt  in  morals.  The  family  feuds  aided 
and  exaggerated  the  divisions  in  this  small  community 
of  freehold  voters.  Appointments  were  made  in  the 
federal  and  state  services  for  political  reasons  and  for 
family  reasons,  precisely  as  they  had  long  been  made  in 
England.  Especially  along  the  rich  river  counties  from 
New  York  to  the  upper  Hudson  were  so  distributed  the 
lucrative  offices,  which  were  eagerly  sought  for  their 
profit  as  well  as  for  their  honor. 

"  I  shall  not,  whilst  I  have  the  honor  to  administer  the  gov 
ernment,  bring  a  man  into  any  office  of  consequence,  knowingly, 
whose  political  tenets  are  adverse  to  the  measures  which  the  gen 
eral  government  are  pursuing  ;  for  this,  in  my  opinion,  would  be 
a  sort  of  political  suicide. ' '  —  Washington  to  Pickering,  secretary 
of  war,  September  27,  1795.  Vol.  11  of  Sparks's  edition  of  Wash 
ington's  Writings,  74. 


40  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

The  contests  were  at  first  for  places  naturally  va 
cated  by  death  or  resignation  ;  the  idea  of  the  property 
right  of  an  incumbent  actually  in  office  lingered  until  after 
the  last  century  was  out.  It  is  not  clear  when  the  first 
removals  of  subordinate  officers  took  place  for  political 
reasons.  Some  were  made  by  the  Federalists  during 
Governor  Jay's  administration  ;  but  the  first  extensive 
removals  seem  to  have  occurred  after  the  elections  of 
1801.  For  this  there  were  two  immediate  causes.  In 
that  year  the  exclusive  nominating  power  of  the  gov 
ernor  was  taken  from  him.  Each  of  the  other  four 
members  of  the  council  of  appointment  could  now  nom 
inate  as  well  as  confirm.  Appointments  and  removals 
were  made,  therefore,  from  that  year  until  the  new  Con 
stitution  of  1821,  by  one  of  the  worst  of  appointing 
bodies,  a  commission  of  several  men  whose  consultations 
were  secret  and  whose  responsibility  was  divided.  Sys 
tematic  abuse  of  the  power  of  appointment  became  in 
evitable.  There  was,  besides,  a  second  reason  in  the 
anger  against  Federalists,  which  they  had  gone  far  to 
provoke,  and  against  their  long  and  by  no  means  gentle 
domination.  This  anger  induced  the  Republicans  to 
seek  out  every  method  of  punishment.  But  for  this, 
the  abuse  might  have  been  long  deferred.  Nor  is  it 
unlikely  that  the  refusal  of  Jefferson,  inaugurated  in 
March  of  that  year,  to  make  a  "  clean  sweep  "  of  his 
enemies,  turned  the  longing  eyes  of  embittered  Republi 
cans  in  New  York  more  eagerly  to  the  fat  state  offices 
enjoyed  by  their  insolent  adversaries  of  the  past  twelve 
years. 

The  Clintons  and  Livingstons  had  led  the  Republi 
cans  to  a  victory  at  the  state  election  in  April,  1801. 
Later  in  that  year  George  Clinton,  now  again  governor, 


RISE   OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM.  41 

called  together  the  new  council  with  the  nominating- 
power  vested  in  every  one  of  its  five  members.  This 
council  acted  under  distinguished  auspices,  and  it  de 
serves  to  be  long  remembered.  Governor  Clinton  pre 
sided,  and  his  famous  nephew,  De  Witt  Clinton,  was 
below  him  in  the  board.  The  latter  represented  the 
Clintonian  Republicans.1  Ambrose  Spencer,  a  man  of 
great  parts  and  destined  to  a  notable  career,  represented 
the  Livingstons,  of  whom  he  was  a  family  connection. 
Roseboom,  the  other  Republican,  was  easily  led  by  his 
two  abler  party  associates.  The  fifth  member  did  not 
count,  for  he  was  a  Federalist.  Two  of  the  three  really 
distinguished  men  of  this  council,  De  Witt  Clinton  and 
Ambrose  Spencer,  it  is  not  unjust  to  say,  first  openly 
and  responsibly  established  in  New  York  the  "spoils 
system  "  by  removals,  for  political  reasons,  of  officers 
not  political.  The  term  of  office  of  the  four  senatorial 
members  of  this  council  had  commenced  while  the  illus 
trious  Federalist  John  Jay  was  governor ;  but  they 
rejected  his  nominations  until  he  was  tired  of  making 
them,  and  refused  to  call  them  together.  When  Clinton 
took  the  governor's  seat,  he  promptly  summoned  the 
board,  and  in  August,  1801,  the  work  began.  De  Witt 
Clinton  publicly  formulated  the  doctrine,  but  it  did  not 
yet  reach  its  extreme  form.  He  said  that  the  principal 
executive  offices  in  the  state  ought  to  be  filled  by  the 
friends  of  the  administration,  and  the  more  unimportant 
offices  ought  to  be  proportionally  distributed  between 
the  two  parties.  The  council  rapidly  divided  the  chief 

1  I  use  the  political  name  then  in  vogue.  The  greater  part  of 
the  Republicans  have,  since  the  rearrangement  of  parties  in  John 
Quincy  Adams's  time,  or  rather  since  Jackson's  time,  been  known 
as  Democrats. 


42  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

appointments  among  the  Clintons  and  Livingstons  and 
their  personal  supporters.  Officers  were  selected  whom 
Jay  had  refused  to  appoint.  Edward  Livingston,  the 
chancellor's  brother,  was  given  the  mayoralty  of  New 
York,  a  very  profitable  as  well  as  important  station  ; 
Thomas  Tillotson,  a  brother-in-law  of  Chancellor  Liv 
ingston,  was  made  secretary  of  state,  in  place  of  Daniel 
Hale,  removed  ;  John  V.  Henry,  a  distinguished  Feder 
alist  lawyer,  was  removed  from  the  comptrollership ; 
the  district  attorney,  the  clerk  and  the  recorder  of  New 
York  were  removed  ;  William  Coleman,  the  founder  of 
the  "  Evening  Post,"  and  a  strong  adherent  of  Hamil 
ton,  was  turned  out  of  the  clerkship  of  the  circuit  court. 
And  so  the  work  went  on  through  minor  offices.  New 
commissions  were  required  by  the  Constitution  to  be 
issued  to  the  puisne  judges  of  the  county  courts  and  to 
justices  of  the  peace  throughout  the  state  once  in  three 
years.  Instead  of  renewing  the  commissions  and  pre 
serving  continuity  in  the  administration  of  justice,  the 
council  struck  out  the  names  of  Federalists  and  inserted 
those  of  Republicans.  The  proceedings  of  this  council 
of  1801  have  profoundly  affected  the  politics  of  New 
York  to  this  day.  Few  political  bodies  in  America 
have  exercised  as  serious  and  lasting  an  influence  upon 
the  political  habits  of  the  nation.  The  tradition  that 
Van  Buren  and  the  Albany  Regency  began  political  pro 
scription  is  untrue.  The  system  of  removals  was  thus 
established  several  years  before  Van  Buren  held  his  first 
office.  Its  founders,  De  Witt  Clinton  and  Ambrose 
Spencer,  were  long  his  political  enemies.  Governor 
Clinton,  whose  honorable  record  it  was  that  during  the 
eighteen  years  of  his  governorship  he  had  never  con 
sented  to  a  political  removal,  entered  his  protest  —  not 


RISE   OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM.  43 

a  very  hearty  one,  it  is  to  be  feared  —  in  the  journal  of 
the  council;  but  in  vain.  In  the  next  year  the  two 
chief  offenders  were  promoted,  —  De  Witt  Clinton  to  be 
United  States  senator  in  the  place  of  General  Arm 
strong,  a  brother-in-law  of  Chancellor  Livingston,  and 
Ambrose  Spencer  to  be  attorney-general ;  and  two  years 
later  Spencer  became  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court. 

After  the  removals   there  began  a  disintegration  of 
the  party  hitherto  successfully  led   by  Burr,  the  Clin 
tons,  and   the  Livingstons.     Colonel  Swartwout,  Burr's 
friend,  was  called  by  De  Witt  Clinton  a  liar,  scoundrel 
and  villain;  although,  after  receiving  two  bullets  from 
Clinton's  pistol  in  a  duel,  he  was  assured  by  the  latter, 
with  the  courtesy  of  our  grandfathers,  that  there  was  no 
personal  animosity.     Burr's  friends  had  of  course  to  be 
removed.     But  in  1805,  after  the  Clintons  and  the  Liv 
ingstons  had  united  in  the  election  of  Lewis  as  governor 
over  Burr,  they  too  quarreled,  —  and  naturally  enough, 
for  the  offices  would  not  go  around.     So,  after  the  Clin- 
tonians  on  the  meeting  of  the  legislature  early  in  1806 
had  captured  the  council,  they  turned  upon  their  recent 
allies.     Maturin  Livingston  was  removed  from  the  New 
York  recordership,  and  Tillotson  from  his  place  as  sec 
retary  of   state.     The  work  was  now  done  most  thor 
oughly.     Sheriffs,  clerks,  surrogates,  county  judges,  jus 
tices  of  the  peace,  had  to  go.     But  at  the  corporation 
election  in  New  York  in  the  same  year,  the  Livingstoni- 
ans  and  Federalists,  with  a  majority  of  the  common  coun 
cil,  in  their  fashion  righted  the  wrong,  and,  with  a  vigor 
not  excelled  by  their  successors  a  half  century  later,  re 
moved  at  once  all  the  subordinate  municipal  officers  sub 
ject  to  their  control  who  were   Clintonians.     In  1807 
the   Livingstonian  Republicans,  or,  as   they  were   now 


44  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

called  from  the  governor,  the  Lewisites,  with  the 
Federalists  and  Burrites,  secured  control  of  the  state 
council ;  and  proceeded  promptly  to  the  work  of  re 
movals,  defending  it  as  a  legitimate  return  for  the  pre 
scriptive  course  of  their  predecessors.  In  1808  the 
Clintonians  returned  to  the  council,  and,  through  its 
now  familiar  labors,  to  the  offices  from  which  the  Lewis 
ites  were  in  their  turn  driven.  In  1810  the  Federalists 
controlled  the  assembly  which  chose  the  council ;  and 
they  enjoyed  a  "  clean  sweep "  as  keenly  as  had  the 
contending  Republican  factions.  But  the  election  of 
this  year,  the  political  record  tells  us,  taught  a  lesson 
which  politicians  have  ever  since  refused  to  learn,  per 
haps  because  it  has  not  always  been  taught.  The  re 
moval  of  the  Republicans  from  office  u  had  the  natural 
tendency  to  call  out  all  their  forces."  The  Clintonians 
in  1811,  therefore,  were  enabled  by  the  people  to  reverse 
the  Federalist  proscription  of  1810.  The  Federalists, 
again  in  power  in  1813,  again  followed  the  uniform 
usage  then  twelve  years  old.  Political  removals  had  be 
come  part  of  the  unwritten  law. 

At  this  time  Van  Buren  suffered  the  loss  of  his  office 
as  surrogate,  but  doubtless  without  any  sense  of  private 
or  public  wrong.  It  was  the  customary  fate  of  war.  In 
1812  he  was  nominated  for  state  senator  from  the  mid 
dle  district,  composed  of  Columbia,  Dutchess,  Orange, 
Ulster,  Delaware,  Chenango,  Greene,  and  Sullivan  coun 
ties,  as  the  candidate  of  the  Clintonian  Republicans 
against  Edward  P.  Livingston,  the  candidate  of  the 
Lewisites  or  Livingstonians  and  Burrites  as  well  as  the 
Federalists.  Livingston  was  the  sitting  member,  and  a 
Republican  of  powerful  family  and  political  connections. 
Van  Buren,  not  yet  thirty,  defeated  him  by  a  majority 


RISE   OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM.  45 

of  less  than  two  hundred  out  of  twenty  thousand  votes. 
In  November,  1812,  he  took  his  seat  at  Albany,  and 
easily  and  within  a  few  months  reached  a  conspicuous 
and  powerful  place  in  state  politics. 

These   details   of   the   establishment  of   the  "spoils 
system"   in  New  York   politics  seem  necessary  to  be 
told,  that  Van  Buren's  own  participation  in  the  wrong 
may  be  fairly  judged.    It  is  a  common  historical  vice  to 
judge  the  conduct  of  men  of  earlier  times  by  standards 
which  they  did  not  know.     Van  Buren  found  thoroughly 
and  universally  established  at  Albany,  when  he  entered 
its  life,  the  rule  that,  upon  a  change  in  the  executive, 
there  should  be  a  change  in  the  offices,  without  reference 
to  their  political  functions.     He  had  in  his  own  person 
experienced  its  operation  both  to  his  advantage  and  to 
his  disadvantage.      Federalists  and   Republicans  were 
alike  committed  to  the  rule.     The  most  distinguished 
and  the  most  useful  men  in  active  public  life,  whatever 
their  earlier  opinion   might  have  been,  had  acquiesced 
and   joined    in    the   practice.      Nor    was   the    practice 
changed  or  extended  after  Van  Buren  came  into  state 
politics.     It  continued  as  it  had  thus  begun,  until  he  be 
came  a  national  figure.     Success  in  it  required  an  abil 
ity  and  skill  of  which  he  was  an  easy  master  ;  nor  does 
he  seem  to  have  shrunk  from  it.     But  he  was  neither 
more  nor  less  reprehensible  than  the  universal  public 
sense  about  him.     For  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
"  spoils  system  "   was  not  then   offensive  to  the  more 
enlightened  citizens  of   New  York.      The  system  was 
no  excess  of  democracy  or  universal  suffrage.     It  had 
arisen    amidst    a    suffrage    for    governor    and  senators 
limited  to  those  who  held  in  freehold  land  worth  at  least 
£100,  and  for  assemblymen  limited  to  those  who  held  in 


46  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

freehold  land  worth  £20,  or  paid  a  yearly  rent  of  forty 
shillings,  and  who  were  rated  and  actually  paid  taxes. 
It  was  practiced  by  men  of  aristocratic  habits  chosen  by 
the  well-to-do  classes.  It  grew  in  the  disputes  of  great 
family  interests,  and  in  the  bitterness  of  popular  ele 
ments  met  in  a  new  country,  still  strange  or  even  for 
eign  to  one  another,  and  permitted  by  their  release  from 
the  dangers  of  war  and  the  fear  of  British  oppression 
to  indulge  their  mutual  dislikes. 

The  frequent  "  rotation  "  in  office  which  was  soon  to 
be  pronounced  a  safeguard  of  republican  institutions, 
and  which  Jackson  in  December,  1829,  told  Congress 
was  a  "  leading  principle  in  the  Republicans'  creed," 
was  by  no  means  an  unnatural  step  towards  an  im 
provement  of  the  civil  service  of  the  state.  Reformers 
of  our  day  lay  great  stress  upon  the  fundamental  rule 
of  democratic  government,  that  a  public  office  is  simply 
a  trust  for  the  people  ;  and  they  justly  find  the  chief 
argument  against  the  abuses  of  patronage  in  the  noto 
rious  use  of  office  for  the  benefit  of  small  portions 
of  the  people,  to  the  detriment  of  the  rest.  In  Eng 
land,  however,  for  centuries  (and  to  some  extent  the 
idea  survives  there  in  our  own  time),  there  was  in  an 
office  a  quality  of  property  having  about  it  the  same 
kind  of  sacred  immunity  which  belongs  to  real  or  per 
sonal  estate.  There  were  reversions  to  offices  after  the 
deaths  of  their  occupants,  like  vested  remainders  in 
lands.  It  was  offensive  to  common  decency  and  justice 
that  the  right  of  each  officer  to  appropriate  so  much  of 
the  public  revenue  should  be  attacked.  It  offended 
neither  justice  nor  the  public  conscience  that  great  per 
quisites  should  belong  to  officers  performing  work  of  the 
most  trifling  value  or  none  at  all.  The  same  practices 


RISE  OF  THE  SPOILS  SYSTEM.  47 

and  traditions,  weakened  by  distance  from  England  and 
by  the  simpler  life  and  smaller  wealth  of  the  colonists, 
came  to  our  forefathers.  They  existed  when  the  demo 
cratic  movement,  stayed  during  the  necessities  of  war 
and  civil  reconstruction,  returned  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century  and  became  all-powerful  in  1801.  To  break 
this  idea  of  property  and  right  in  office,  to  make  it  clear 
that  every  office  was  a  mere  means  of  service  of  the 
people  at  the  wish  of  the  people,  there  seemed,  to 
very  patriotic  and  generally  very  wise  men,  no  simpler 
way  than  that  the  people  by  their  elections  should  take 
away  and  distribute  offices  in  utter  disregard  of  the  in 
terests  of  those  who  held  them.  The  odious  result  to 
which  this  afterwards  led,  of  making  offices  the  mere 
property  of  influential  politicians,  was  but  imperfectly 
foreseen.  Nor  did  that  result,  inevitable  as  it  was, 
follow  for  many  years.  There  seems  no  reason  to  be 
lieve  that  the  incessant  and  extensive  changes  in  office 
which  began  in  1801,  seriously  lowered  the  standard  of 
actual  public  service  until  years  after  Van  Buren  was  a 
powerful  and  conspicuous  politician.  Political  parties 
were  pretty  generally  in  the  hands  of  honest  men.  The 
prostituted  and  venal  disposition  of  "  spoils,"  though  a 
natural  sequence,  was  to  come  long  after.  Rotation 
was  practiced,  or  its  fruits  were  accepted  and  enjoyed 
with  satisfaction,  by  public  men  of  the  state  who  were 
really  statesmen,  who  had  high  standards  of  public 
honor  and  duty,  whose  minds  were  directed  towards 
great  and  exalted  public  ends.  If  it  seemed  right  to 
De  Witt  Clinton,  Edward  Livingston,  Robert  R.  Liv 
ingston,  and  Ambrose  Spencer,  surely  lesser  gods  of  our 
early  political  Olympus  could  not  be  expected  to  refuse 
its  advantages  or  murmur  at  its  hardships.  Nor  was 


48  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  change  distasteful  to  the  people,  if  we  may  judge  by 
their  political  behavior.  No  faction  or  party  seems  to 
have  been  punished  by  public  sentiment  for  the  practice 
except  in  conspicuous  cases  like  those  of  De  Witt  Clin 
ton  and  Van  Buren,  where  sometimes  blows  aimed  at 
single  men  roused  popular  and  often  an  undeserved 
sympathy.  The  idea  that  a  public  officer  should  easily 
and  naturally  go  from  the  ranks  of  the  people  without 
special  equipment,  and  as  easily  return  to  those  ranks, 
has  been  popularly  agreeable  wherever  the  story  of  Cin- 
cinnatus  has  been  told.  Early  in  this  century  the  close 
ness  of  offices  to  ordinary  life,  and  the  absence  of  an 
organized  bureaucracy  controlling  or  patronizing  the 
masses  of  men,  seemed  proper  elements  of  the  great 
democratic  reform.  There  had  not  yet  arisen  the  very 
modern  and  utilitarian  and  the  vastly  better  conception 
of  a  service,  the  responsible  directors  of  whose  policy 
should  be  changed  with  popular  sentiment,  but  whose 
subordinates  should  be  treated  by  the  public  as  any 
other  employer  would  treat  them,  upon  simple  and  un 
sentimental  rules  of  business.  Another  practical  con 
sideration  makes  more  intelligible  the  failure  of  our  an 
cestors  to  perceive  the  dangers  of  the  great  change  they 
permitted.  Offices  were  not  nearly  as  technical,  their 
duties  not  nearly  as  uniform,  as  they  have  grown  to  be 
in  the  more  complex  procedures  of  our  enormously 
richer  and  more  populous  time.  Every  officer  did  a 
multitude  of  things.  Intelligent  and  active  men  in  un 
official  life  shifted  with  amazing  readiness  and  success 
from  one  calling  to  another.  A  general  became  a  judge, 
or  a  judge  became  a  general,  —  as,  indeed,  we  have  seen 
in  later  days.  A  merchant  could  learn  to  survey  ;  a 
farmer  could  keep  or  could  learn  to  keep  fair  records. 


WAR    OF   1812.  49 

In  the  art  of  making  of  the  lesser  offices  ammunition 
with  which  to  fight  great  battles  over  great  questions, 
Van  Buren  became  a  master.  His  imperturbable  temper 
and  patience,  his  keen  reading  of  the  motives  and  uses 
of  men,  gave  him  so  firm  a  hold  upon  politicians  that  it 
has  been  common  to  forget  the  undoubted  hold  he  long 
had  upon  the  people.  In  April,  1816,  he  was  reflected 
senator  for  a  second  term  of  four  years.  His  eight 
years  of  service  in  the  senate  expired  in  1820. 

In  November,  1812,  the  first  session  of  the  new  legisla 
ture  was  held  to  choose  presidential  electors.  Not  until 
sixteen  years  later  were  electors  chosen  directly  by  the 
people.  Van  Buren  voted  for  the  candidates  favorable 
to  De  Witt  Clinton  for  president  as  against  Madison. 
In  the  successful  struggle  of  the  Clintonians  for  these 
electors,  he  is  said  in  this,  his  first  session,  to  have  shown 
the  address  and  activity  which  at  once  made  him  a  Re 
publican  leader.  For  his  vote  against  Madison  Van 
Buren's  friends  afterwards  made  many  apologies ;  his 
adversaries  declared  it  unpardonable  treachery  to  one  of 
the  revered  Democratic  fathers.  But  the  young  politi 
cian  was  not  open  to  much  condemnation.  De  Witt 
Clinton,  though  he  had  but  just  reached  the  beginning 
of  middle  life,  was  a  very  able  and  even  an  illustrious 
man.  He  had  been  unanimously  nominated  in  an 
orderly  way  by  a  caucus  of  the  Republican  members  of 
the  legislature  of  1811  and  1812  of  which  Van  Buren 
was  not  a  member.  He  had  accepted  the  nomination 
and  had  declined  to  withdraw  from  it.  There  was  a 
strong  Republican  opposition  to  the  declaration  of  war 
at  that  time,  because  preparation  for  it  had  not  been 
adequately  made.  Most  of  the  Republican  members  of 
Congress  from  New  York  had  voted  against  the  declara- 


50  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

tion.  The  virtues  and  abilities  of  Madison  were  not 
those  likely  to  make  a  successful  war,  as  the  event  amply 
proved.  There  was  natural  and  deserved  discontent 
with  the  treatment  by  Jefferson's  administration,  in 
which  Madison  had  charge  of  foreign  relations,  and  by 
Madison's  own  administration,  of  the  difficulties  caused 
by  the  British  Orders  in  Council,  the  Berlin  and  Milan 
decrees  of  Napoleon,  and  the  unprincipled  depredations 
of  both  the  great  belligerents.  Van  Buren  is  said  by 
Butler,  then  an  inmate  of  his  family,  to  have  been  an 
open  and  decided  advocate  of  the  embargo,  and  of  all 
the  strong  measures  proposed  against  Great  Britain 
and  of  the  war  itself.  Nor  was  this  very  inconsistent 
with  his  vote  for  Clinton.  He  had  a  stronger  sense  of 
allegiance  to  his  party  in  the  State  than  to  his  party  at 
Washington  ;  and  the  Republican  party  of  New  York 
had  regularly  declared  for  Clinton.  For  once  at  least 
Van  Buren  found  himself  voting  with  the  great  body 
of  the  Federalists,  men  who  had  not,  like  John  Quincy 
Adams,  become  reconciled  to  the  strong  and  obvious, 
though  sometimes  ineffective,  patriotism  of  Jefferson's 
and  Madison's  administrations.  But  whatever  had 
been  the  motives  which  induced  Van  Buren  to  support 
Clinton,  they  soon  ceased  to  operate.  Within  a  few 
months  after  this  the  political  relations  between  the  two 
men  were  dissolved ;  and  they  were  politically  hostile, 
until  Clinton's  death  fourteen  years  afterwards  called 
from  Van  Buren  a  most  pathetic  tribute. 

Although  the  youngest  man  but  one,  it  was  said,  until 
that  time  elected  to  the  state  senate,  Van  Buren  was  in 
January,  1814,  chosen  to  prepare  the  answer  then  cus 
tomarily  made  to  the  speech  of  the  governor.  In  it  he 
defended  the  war,  which  had  been  bitterly  assailed  in 


WAR   OF  1812.  51 

the  address  to  the  governor  made  by  the  Federalist  as 
sembly.  Political  divisions  even  when  carried  to  excess 
were,  he  said,  inseparable  from  the  blessings  of  freedom ; 
but  such  divisions  were  unfit  in  their  resistance  of  a  for 
eign  enemy.  The  great  body  of  the  New  York  Republi 
cans,  with  Governor  Tompkins  at  their  head,  now  gave 
Madison  vigorous  support ;  although  their  defection  in 
1812  had  probably  made  possible  the  Federalist  success 
at  the  election  for  the  assembly  in  1813,  which  embar 
rassed  the  national  administration.  Van  Buren  warmly 
supported  Tompkins  for  his  reelection  in  April,  1813, 
and  prepared  for  the  legislative  caucus  a  highly  declam 
atory,  but  clear  and  forcible,  address  to  Republican  elec 
tors  in  his  behalf.  The  provocations  to  war  were  strongly 
set  out.  It  was  declared  that  u  war  and  war  alone  was 
our  only  refuge  from  national  degradation  ;  "  the  u  two 
great  and  crying  grievances  "  were  "  the  destruction  of 
our  commerce,  and  the  impressment  of  our  seamen  ;  " 
for  Americans  did  not  anticipate  the  surrender  at  Ghent 
two  years  later  to  the  second  wrong.  While  American 
sailors'  "  deeds  of  heroic  valor  make  old  Ocean  smile  at 
the  humiliations  of  her  ancient  tyrant,"  the  address 
urged  Americans  to  mark  the  man,  meaning  the  trading 
Federalist,  who  believed  "  in  commuting  our  sailors' 
rights  for  the  safety  of  our  merchants'  goods."  In  the 
sophomoric  and  solemn  rhetoric  of  which  Americans, 
and  Englishmen  too,  were  then  fond,  it  pointed  out  that 
the  favor  of  citizens  was  not  sought  "  by  the  seductive 
wiles  and  artful  blandishments  of  the  corrupt  minions  of 
aristocracy,"  who  of  course  were  Federalists,  but  that 
citizens  were  now  addressed  "in  the  language  which 
alone  becomes  freemen  to  use,  —  the  language  to  which 
alone  it  becomes  freemen  to  listen." 


52  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

In  the  legislative  sessions  of  1813  and  1814  Van 
Buren  gave  a  practical  and  skillful  support  to  adminis 
tration  measures.  But  many  of  them  were  balked  by 
the  Federalists,  until  in  the  election  of  April,  1814,  the 
rising  patriotism  of  the  country,  undaunted  by  the  un 
skillful  and  unfortunate  conduct  of  the  war,  pronounced 
definitely  in  favor  of  a  strong  war  policy.  The  Republi 
cans  recovered  control  of  the  assembly ;  and  there  were 
already  a  Republican  governor  and  senate.  An  extra 
session  was  summoned  in  September,  1814,  through 
which  exceedingly  vigorous  measures  were  carried  against 
Federalist  opposition.  Van  Buren  now  definitely  led. 
Appropriations  were  made  from  the  state  treasury  for 
the  pay  of  militia  in  the  national  service.  The  State 
undertook  to  enlist  twelve  thousand  men  for  two  years, 
a  corps  of  sea  fencibles  consisting  of  twenty  companies, 
and  two  regiments  of  colored  men  ;  slaves  enlisting  with 
the  consent  of  their  masters  to  be  freed.  Van  Buren's 
"  classification  act "  Benton  afterwards  declared  to  be 
the  "  most  energetic  war  measure  ever  adopted  in  this 
country."  By  it  the  whole  military  population  was  di 
vided  into  12,000  classes,  each  class  to  furnish  one  able- 
bodied  man,  making  the  force  of  12,000  to  be  raised. 
If  no  one  volunteered  from  a  class,  then  any  member  of 
the  class  was  authorized  to  procure  a  soldier  by  a  bounty, 
the  amount  of  which  should  be  paid  by  the  members  of 
the  class  according  to  their  ability,  to  be  determined  by 
assessors.  If  no  soldier  from  the  class  were  thus  pro 
cured,  then  a  soldier  was  to  be  peremptorily  drafted  from 
each  class.  Van  Buren  was  proud  enough  of  this  act  to 
file  the  draft  of  it  in  his  own  handwriting  with  the  clerk 
of  the  senate,  indorsed  by  himself  :  "  The  original  Classi 
fication  Bill,  to  be  preserved  as  a  memento  of  the  patri- 


ELECTED  ATTORNEY-GENERAL.  53 

otism,  intelligence,  and  firmness  of  the  legislature  of 
1814-15.  M.  V.  B.  Albany,  Feb.  15,  1815." 

Cheered,  after  many  disasters,  by  the  victory  at  Platts- 
burg  and  the  creditable  battle  of  Lundy's  Lane,  the  sen 
ate,  in  Van  Buren's  words,  congratulated  Governor 
Tompkins  upon  "  the  brilliant  achievements  of  our  army 
and  navy  during  the  present  campaign,  which  have 
pierced  the  gloom  that  for  a  time  obscured  our  political 
horizon."  The  end  of  the  war  left  in  high  favor  the 
Republicans  who  had  supported  it.  The  people  were 
good-humoredly  willing  to  forget  its  many  inefficiencies, 
to  recall  complacently  its  few  glories,  and  to  find  little 
fault  with  a  treaty  which,  if  it  established  no  disputed 
right,  at  least  brought  peace  without  surrender  and  with 
out  dishonor.  Jackson's  fine  victory  at  New  Orleans 
after  the  treaty  was  signed,  though  it  came  too  late  to 
strengthen  John  Quincy  Adams's  dauntless  front  in  the 
peace  conference,  was  quickly  seized  by  the  people  as 
the  summing  up  of  American  and  British  prowess.  The 
Republicans  now  had  a  hero  in  the  West,  as  well  as  a 
philosopher  at  Monticello.  Van  Buren  drafted  the  reso 
lution  giving  the  thanks  of  New  York  "  to  Major-Gen- 
eral  Jackson,  his  gallant  officers  and  troops,  for  their 
wonderful  and  heroic  victory." 

In  the  method  then  well  established  the  Republicans 
celebrated  their  political  success  in  1814.  Among  the 
removals,  Abraham  Van  Vechten  lost  the  post  of  attor 
ney-general,  which  on  February  17,  1815,  was  conferred 
upon  Van  Buren  for  his  brilliant  and  successful  leader 
ship  in  the  senate.  He  remained,  however,  a  senator  of 
the  State.  At  thirty-two,  therefore,  he  was,  next  to  the 
governor,  the  leader  of  the  Tompkins  Republicans,  now 
so  completely  dominant ;  he  held  two  political  offices  of 


54  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

dignity  and  importance  ;  and  he  was  conducting  besides 
an  active  law  practice. 

De  Witt  Clinton,  after  his  defeat  for  the  presidency, 
suffered  other  disasters.  It  was  in  January,  1813,  that 
he  and  Van  Buren  broke  their  political  relations  ;  and 
the  Republicans  very  largely  fell  off  from  him.  The 
reasons  for  this  do  not  clearly  appear  ;  but  were  prob 
ably  Clinton's  continuance  of  hostility  to  the  national 
administration,  which  seemed  unpatriotic  to  the  Repub 
licans,  and  some  of  the  mysterious  matters  of  patronage 
in  which  Clinton  had  been  long  and  highly  prescriptive. 
In  1815  the  latter  was  removed  from  the  mayoralty  of 
New  York  by  the  influence  of  Governor  Tompkins  in 
the  council.  He  had  been  both  mayor  and  senator  for 
several  years  prior  to  1812.  He  was  mayor  and  lieu 
tenant-governor  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  presi 
dency. 

In  1816  the  Republicans  in  the  assembly,  then  closely 
divided  between  them  and  the  Federalists  (who  seemed 
to  be  favored  by  the  apportionment),  sought  one  of  those 
immoral  advantages  whose  wrong  in  times  of  high 
party  feeling  seems  invisible  to  men  otherwise  honorable. 
In  the  town  of  Pennington  a  Federalist,  Henry  Fel 
lows,  had  been  fairly  elected  to  the  assembly  by  a  ma 
jority  of  30  ;  but  49  of  his  ballots  were  returned  as 
reading  "  Hen.  Fellows  " ;  and  his  Republican  com 
petitor,  Peter  Allen,  got  the  certificate  of  appointment. 
The  Republicans,  acting,  it  seems,  in  open  conference 
with  Van  Buren,  insisted  not  only  upon  organizing  the 
house,  which  was  perhaps  right,  but  upon  what  was 
wrong  and  far  more  important.  They  elected  the  council 
of  appointment  before  Fellows  was  seated,  as  he  after 
wards  was  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote.  The  "  Peter 


STATE  SENATOR.     ATTORNEY-GENERAL.       55 

Allen  legislature  "  is  said  to  have  become  a  term  of  re 
proach.  But,  as  with  electoral  abuses  in  later  days, 
the  Federalists  were  not  as  much  aided  as  they  ought 
to  have  been  by  this  sharp  practice  of  their  rivals  ;  the 
people  perhaps  thought  that  as  they  were  in  the  minor 
ity  everywhere  but  in  the  assembly,  they  ought  not  to 
have  been  permitted,  by  a  capture  of  the  council,  to  re 
move  the  Republicans  in  office.  At  any  rate  the  elec 
tion  in  April,  1816,  while  the  "  Peter  Allen  legislature  " 
was  still  in  office,  went  heavily  in  favor  of  the  Repub 
licans,  Van  Buren  receiving  his  second  election  to  the 
senate.  On  March  4,  1816,  he  was  chosen  by  the  legis 
lature  a  regent  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  an  office  which  he  held  until  1829.  The  Uni 
versity  was  then,  as  now,  almost  a  myth,  being  supposed 
to  be  the  associated  colleges  and  academies  of  the  state. 
But  the  regents  have  had  a  varying  charge  of  educa 
tional  matters. 

In  1817  the  agitation,  so  superbly  and  with  such 
foresight  conducted  by  Clinton,  resulted  in  the  passage 
of  the  law  under  which  the  construction  of  the  Erie 
Canal  began.  Van  Buren's  enmity  to  Clinton  did  not 
cause  him  to  oppose  the  measure,  of  which  Hammond 
says  he  was  an  "  early  friend."  With  a  few  others  he 
left  his  party  ranks  to  vote  with  Clinton's  friends  ;  and 
this  necessary  accession  from  the  "  Bucktails  "  is  said 
by  the  same  very  fair  historian  to  have  been  produced 
by  Van  Buren's  "  efficient  and  able  efforts."  In  his 
speech  favoring  it  he  declared  that  his  vote  for  the  law 
would  be  "  the  most  important  vote  he  ever  gave  in  his 
life ; "  that  "  the  project,  if  executed,  would  raise  the 
State  to  the  highest  possible  pitch  of  fame  and  gran 
deur,"  an  expression  not  discredited  by  the  splendid 


56  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

and  fruitful  result  of  the  enterprise.  Clinton,  after 
hearing  the  speech,  forgot  for  a  moment  their  political 
collisions,  and  personally  thanked  Van  Buren. 

In    April,  1817,  Clinton  was  elected  governor  by  a 
practically  unanimous  vote.     His  resolute  courage  and 
the  prestige  of  the  canal  policy  compelled  this  tribute 
from  the  Republicans,  in  spite  of  his  sacrilegious  presi 
dential  aspiration  in  1812,  and  his  dismissal  from  the 
mayoralty  of  New  York  in  1815.     Governor  Tompkins, 
now  vice-president,    was    Clinton's  only   peer   in    New 
York  politics.     The  popular  tide  was  too  strong  for  the 
efforts  of  Tompkins,  Van  Buren,  and  their  associates. 
In  the  eagerness  to  defeat  Clinton,  it  was  even  suggested 
that  Tompkins  should  serve  both  as  governor  and  vice- 
president  ;  should  be  at  once  ruler  at  Albany  and  vice- 
ruler  at  Washington.     Van  Buren  did  not,  however,  go 
with  the  hot-heads  of  the  legislature  in  opposing  a  bill 
for  an  election  to  fill  the  vacancy  left  by  the  resigna 
tion,  which  it  was  at  last  thought  necessary  for  Tomp 
kins  to  make,  of  the  governorship.     No  one  dared  run 
against  Clinton  ;  and  he  triumphantly  returned  to  politi 
cal  power.     Under  this  administration  of  his,  the  party 
feud  took  definite  form.     Clinton's  Republican  adver 
saries  were  dubbed  "  Bucktails,"  from  the    ornaments 
worn  on  ceremonial  occasions   by  the    Tammany  men 
who  had  long  been  Clinton's  enemies.     The  Bucktails 
and  their  successors  were  the  "  regular  "  Republicans,  or 
the  Democrats  as  they  were  later  called  ;  and  they  kept 
their  regularity  until,  long  afterwards,  the  younger  and 
greater  Bucktail  leader,  when  venerable  and  laden  with 
honors,  became  the  titular  head  of  the  Barnburner  de 
fection.     The  merits  of  the  feud  between  Bucktails  and 
Clintonians  it  is  now  difficult  to  find.     Each  accused  the 


STATE  SENATOR.  57 

other  of  coquetting  with  the  Federalists ;  and  the  accu 
sation  of  one  of  them  was  nearly  always  true.  Politics 
was  a  highly  developed  and  extremely  interesting  game, 
whose  players,  though  really  able  and  patriotic  men, 
were  apparently  careless  of  the  undignified  parts  they 
were  playing.  Nor  are  Clintonians  and  Bucktails  alone 
in  political  history.  Cabinets  of  the  greatest  nations 
have,  in  more  modern  times,  broken  on  grounds  as 
sheerly  personal  as  those  which  divided  Clinton  and 
Van  Buren  in  1818.  British  and  French  ministries, 
as  recent  memoirs  and  even  recent  events  have  shown, 
have  fallen  to  pieces  in  feuds  of  as  little  essential  dignity 
as  belonged  to  those  of  New  York  seventy  years  ago. 

In  1819  the  Bucktails  suffered  the  fate  of  war ;  and 
Van  Buren,  their  efficient  head,  was  removed  from  the 
attorney-general's  office.  Thurlow  Weed,  then  a  country 
editor,  grotesquely  wrote  at  the  time  that  "  rotation  in 
office  is  the  most  striking  and  brilliant  feature  of  excel 
lence  in  our  benign  form  of  government ;  and  that  by 
this  doctrine,  bottomed,  as  it  is,  upon  the  Magna  Charta 
of  our  liberties,  Van  Buren's  removal  was  not  only  sanc 
tioned,  but  was  absolutely  required."  The  latter  still 
remained  state  senator,  and  soon  waged  a  short  and 
decisive  campaign  to  recover  political  mastery.  He 
now  came  to  the  aid  of  Governor  Tompkins,  who  dur 
ing  theowar  with  England  had  borrowed  money  for 
public  use  upon  his  personal  responsibility,  and  in  the 
disbursement  of  several  millions  of  dollars  for  war  pur 
poses  had,  through  carelessness  in  book-keeping  or  cler 
ical  detail,  apparently  become  a  debtor  of  the  State.  The 
comptroller,  in  spite  of  a  law  passed  in  1819  to  indem 
nify  Tompkins  for  his  patriotic  services,  took  a  hostile 
attitude  which  threatened  the  latter  with  pecuniary  de- 


58  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

struction.  In  March,  1820,  Van  Buren  threw  himself 
into  the  contest  with  a  skill  and  generous  fervor  which 
saved  the  ex-governor.  Van  Buren's  speech  of  two 
days  for  the  old  chief  of  the  Bucktails,  is  described  by 
Hammond,  a  political  historian  of  New  York  not  un 
duly  friendly  to  Van  Buren,  to  have  been  "  ingenious, 
able,  and  eloquent." 

It  was  also  in  1820  that  Van  Buren  promoted  the  re 
election  of  Rufus  King,  the  distinguished  Federalist, 
to  the  United  States  senate.  His  motives  in  doing  this 
were  long  bitterly  assailed ;  but  as  the  choice  was  in 
trinsically  admirable,  Van  Buren  was  probably  glad  to 
gratify  a  patriotic  impulse  which  was  not  very  incon 
sistent  with  party  advantage.  In  1819  the  Republican 
caucus,  the  last  at  which  the  Bucktails  and  Clintonians 
both  attended,  was  broken  up  amid  mutual  recrimina 
tions.  John  C.  Spencer,  the  son  of  Ambrose  Spencer, 
and  afterwards  a  distinguished  Whig,  was  the  Clin- 
tonian  candidate,  and  had  the  greater  number  of  Repub 
lican  votes.  In  the  legislature  there  was  no  choice, 
Rufus  King  haying  fewer  votes  than  either  of  the  Re 
publicans.  When  the  legislature  of  1820  met,  there  ap 
peared  a  pamphlet  skillfully  written  in  a  tone  of  exalted 
patriotism.  This  decided  the  election  for  King.  Van 
Buren  was  its  author,  and  was  said  to  have  been  aided 
by  William  L.  Marcy.  Both  had  suffered  at  tUe  hands 
of  Clinton.  However  much  they  may  have  been  so  in 
fluenced  in  secret,  they  gave  in  public  perfectly  sound 
and  weighty  reasons  for  returning  this  old  and  distin 
guished  statesman  to  the  place  he  had  honored  for 
many  years.  In  1813  King  had  received  the  votes  of 
a  few  Republicans,  without  whom  he  would  have  been 
defeated  by  a  Republican  competitor.  The  Clintonians 


ELECTION  OF  RUFUS  KING.  59 

and  their  adversaries  had  since  disputed  which  of  them 
had  then  been  guilty  of  party  disloyalty.  But  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  King's  high  character  and  great 
ability,  with  the  bit  of  revolutionary  glamour  about  him, 
made  his  choice  seem  patriotic  and  popular,  and  there 
fore  politically  prudent. 

Van  Buren's  pamphlet  of  1820  was  addressed  to  the 
Republican  members  of  the  legislature  by  a  "  fellow- 
member  "  who  told  them  that  he  knew  and  was  person 
ally  known  to  most  of  them,  and  that  he  had,  "  from 
his  infancy,  taken  a  deep  interest  in  the  honor  and 
prosperity  of  the  party."  This  andHymous  "  fellow- 
member  "  pronounced  the  support  of  King  by  Republi 
cans  to  "  be  an  act  honorable  to  themselves,  advanta 
geous  to  the  country,  and  just  to  him."  He  declared  that 
the  only  reluctance  Republicans  had  to  a  public  avowal 
of  their  sentiments  arose  from  a  "  commendable  appre 
hension  that  their  determination  to  support  him  under 
existing  circumstances  might  subject  them  to  the  sus 
picion  of  having  become  a  party  to  a  political  bargain, 
to  one  of  those  sinister  commutations  of  principle  for 
power,  which  they  think  common  with  their  adversaries, 
and  against  which  they  have  remonstrated  with  becom 
ing  spirit."  He  showed  that  there  were  degrees  even 
among  Federalists,  —  that  some  in  the  war  had  been 
influenced  by  "  most  envenomed  malignity  against  the 
administration  of  their  own  government ;  "  that  a  second 
and  "  very  numerous  and  respectable  portion  "  had  been 
those  "  who,  inured  to  opposition  and  heated  by  colli 
sion,  were  poorly  qualified  to  judge  dispassionately  of 
the  measures  of  government,"  who  thought  the  war  im 
politic  at  the  time,  but  who  were  ignorantly  but  honestly 
mistaken ;  but  that  a  third  class  of  them  had  risen  "  su- 


60  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

perior  to  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  those  with  whom 
they  once  acted."  In  the  last  class  had  been  Rufus 
King ;  at  home  and  in  the  senate  he  had  supported  the 
administration ;  he  had  helped  procure  loans  to  the 
State  for  war  purposes.  The  address  skillfully  recalled 
his  revolutionary  services,  his  membership  in  the  con 
vention  which  framed  the  Federal  Constitution,  his  ap 
pointment  by  Washington  as  minister  to  the  English 
court,  and  his  continuance  there  under  Jefferson.  'He 
was  declared  to  be  opposed  to  Clinton.  The  address 
concluded  by  reciting  that  there  had  been  in  New  York 
"  exceptionable  •nd  unprincipled  political  bargains  and 
coalitions,"  which  with  darker  offenses  ought  to  be 
proved,  to  vindicate  the  great  body  of  citizens  "  from 
the  charge  of  participating  in  the  profligacy  of  the  few, 
and  to  give  rest  to  that  perturbed  spirit  which  now 
haunts  the  scenes  of  former  moral  and  political  de 
baucheries  ; "  but  added  that  the  nature  of  a  vote  for 
King  precluded  such  suspicions. 

The  last  statement  was  just.  King's  return  was  free 
from  other  suspicion  than  that  he  probably  preferred 
the  Van  Buren  to  the  Clinton  Republicans.  Van  Buren, 
seeing  that  the  Federalist  party  was  at  an  end,  was 
glad  both  to  do  a  public  service  and  to  ally  with  his 
party,  in  the  divisions  of  the  future,  some  part  of  the  ele 
ment  so  finely  represented  by  Rufus  King.  In  private 
Van  Buren  urged  the  support  of  King  even  more  em 
phatically.  "  We  are  committed,"  he  wrote,  "  to  his 
support.  It  is  both  wise  and  honest,  and  we  must  have 
no  fluttering  in  our  course.  Mr.  King's  views  towards 
us  are  honorable  and  correct.  .  .  .  Let  us  not,  then, 
have  any  halting.  I  will  put  my  head  on  its  propriety." 
Van  Buren's  partisanship  always  had  a  mellow  charac- 


ELECTION  OF  RUFUS  KING.  61 

ter.  He  practiced  the  golden  rule  of  successful  politics, 
to  foresee  future  benefits  rather  than  remember  past 
injuries.  Indeed,  it  is  just  to  say  more.  In  sending 
King  to  the  senate  he  doubtless  experienced  the  lofty 
pleasure  which  a  politician  of  public  spirit  feels  in  his 
occasional  ability  to  use  his  power  to  reach  a  beneficent 
end,  which  without  the  power  he  could  not  have  reached, 
a  stroke  which  to  a  petty  politician  would  seem  dan 
gerous,  but  which  the  greater  man  accomplishes  with 
out  injury  to  his  party  standing.  A  year  or  two  after 
King's  election,  when  Van  Buren  joined  him  at  Wash 
ington,  there  were  established  the  most  agreeable  rela 
tions  between  them.  The  refinement  and  natural  de 
corum  of  the  younger  man  easily  fell  in  with  the  polished 
and  courtly  manner  of  the  old  Federalist.  Benton, 
who  had  then  just  entered  the  senate,  said  it  was  de 
lightful  to  behold  the  deferential  regard  which  Yan 
Buren  paid  to  his  venerable  colleague,  a  regard  always 
returned  by  King  with  marked  kindness  and  respect. 

In  this  year  the  era  of  good  feeling  was  at  its  height. 
Monroe  was  reelected  president  by  an  almost  unanimous 
vote,  with  Tompkins  again  as  vice-president.  The  good 
feeling,  however,  was  among  the  people,  and  not  among 
the  politicians.  The  Republican  party  was  about  to 
divide  by  reason  of  the  very  completeness  of  its  su 
premacy.  The  Federalist  party  was  extinguished  and 
its  members  scattered.  The  greater  number  of  them  in 
New  York  went  with  the  Clintonian  Republicans,  with 
whom  they  afterwards  formed  the  chief  body  of  the 
Whig  party.  A  smaller  number  of  them,  among  whom 
were  James  A.  Hamilton  and  John  C.  Hamilton,  the 
sons  of  the  great  founder  of  the  Federalist  party,  Wil 
liam  A.  Duer,  John  A.  King  (the  son  of  the  reelected 


62  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

senator),  and  many  others  of  wealth  and  high  social 
position,  ranged  themselves  for  a  time  in  the  Bucktail 
ranks  under  Van  Buren's  leadership.  In  the  slang  of 
the  day,  they  were  the  "  high-minded  Federalists,"  be 
cause  they  had  declared  that  Clinton's  supporters  prac 
ticed  a  personal  subserviency  "  disgusting  to  high-minded 
and  honorable  men."  With  this  addition,  the  Bucktails 
became  the  Democratic  party  in  New  York.  In  April, 
1820,  the  gubernatorial  election  was  between  the  Clin- 
tonians  supporting  Clinton,  and  the  Bucktails  support 
ing  Tompkins,  the  vice-president.  Clinton's  recent  and 
really  magnificent  public  service  made  him  successful  at 
the  polls,  but  his  party  was  beaten  at  other  points. 

Rufus  King's  reelection  to  the  senate  was  believed  to 
have  some  relation  to  the  Missouri  question,  then  agitating 
the  nation.  In  one  of  his  letters  urging  his  Republican 
associates  to  support  King,  Van  Buren  declared  that  the 
Missouri  question  concealed  no  plot  so  far  as  King  was 
concerned,  but  that  he,  Van  Buren,  and  his  friends,  would 
"  give  it  a  true  direction."  King's  strong  opposition  to 
the  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave  state  was,  how 
ever,  perfectly  open.  If  he  returned  to  the  senate,  it 
was  certain  he  would  steadily  vote  against  any  extension 
of  slavery.  Van  Buren  knew  all  this,  and  doubtless 
meant  that  King  was  bargaining  away  none  of  his  con 
victions  for  the  senatorship.  But  what  the  "  true  direc 
tion  "  was  which  was  to  be  given  the  Missouri  question, 
is  not  clear.  About  the  time  of  King's  reelection  Van 
Buren  joined  in  calling  a  public  meeting  at  Albany  to 
protest  against  extending  slavery  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi.  He  was  absent  at  the  time  of  the  meeting,  and 
refused  the  use  of  his  name  upon  the  committee  to  send 
the  anti-slavery  resolutions  to  Washington.  Nor  is  it 


STATE  SENATOR.  63 

clear  whether  his  absence  and  refusal  were  significant. 
He  certainly  did  not  condemn  the  resolutions  ;  and  in 
January,  1820,  he  voted  in  the  state  senate  for  an  in 
struction  to  the  senators  and  representatives  in  Congress 
"to  oppose  the  admission,  as  a  state  in  the  Union,  of 
any  territory  not  comprised  within  the  original  boundary 
of  the  United  States,  without  making  the  prohibition  of 
slavery  therein  an  indispensable  condition  of  admission." 
This  resolution  undoubtedly  expressed  the  clear  convic 
tions  of  the  Republicans  in  New  York,  whether  on  Van 
Buren's  or  Clinton's  side,  as  well  as  of  the  remaining 
Federalists. 

Van  Buren's  direct  interest  in  national  politics  had 
already  begun.  In  1816  he  was  present  in  Washing 
ton  (then  a  pretty  serious  journey  from  Albany)  when 
the  Republican  congressional  caucus  was  held  to  nominate 
a  president.  Governor  Tompkins,  after  a  brief  canvass, 
retired  ;  and  Crawford,  then  secretary  of  war,  became 
the  candidate  against  Monroe,  and  was  supported  by 
most  of  the  Republicans  from  New  York.  Van  Buren's 
preference  was  not  certainly  known,  though  it  is  supposed 
he  preferred  Monroe.  In  1820  he  was  chosen  a  presi 
dential  elector  in  place  of  an  absentee  from  the  electoral 
college,  and  participated  in  the  all  but  unanimous  vote  for 
Monroe.  He  voted  with  the  other  New  York  electors  for 
Tompkins  for  the  vice-presidency.  In  April,  1820,  he 
wrote  to  Henry  Meigs,  a  Bucktail  congressman  then  at 
Washington,  that  the  rascality  of  some  of  the  deputy 
postmasters  in  the  State  was  intolerable,  and  cried  aloud 
for  relief  ;  that  it  was  impossible  to  penetrate  the  inte 
rior  of  the  State  with  friendly  papers  ;  and  that  two  or 
three  prompt  removals  were  necessary.  The  postmas 
ter-general  was  to  be  asked  "  to  do  an  act  of  justice  and 


64  MARTIN  VAN  BUKEN. 

render  us  a  partial  service  "  by  the  removal  of  the  post 
masters  at  Bath,  Little  Falls,  and  Oxford,  and  to  ap 
point  successors,  whom  Van  Buren  named.  In  Janu 
ary,  1821,  Governor  Clinton  sent  this  letter  to  the 
legislature,  with  a  message  and  other  papers  so  numer 
ous  as  to  be  carried  in  a  green  bag,  which  gave  the 
name  to  the  message,  in  support  of  a  charge  that  the 
national  administration  had  interfered  in  the  state  elec 
tion.  But  the  "  green-bag  message  "  did  Van  Buren 
little  harm,  for  Clinton's  own  prescriptive  rigor  had 
been  great,  and  it  was  only  two  years  before  that  Van 
Buren  himself  had  been  removed  from  the  attorney- 
generalship.  In  1821  the  political  division  of  the  New 
York  Republicans  was  carried  to  national  politics. 
When  a  speaker  was  to  be  chosen  in  place  of  Clay, 
Taylor  of  New  York,  the  Republican  candidate,  was 
opposed  by  the  Bucktail  congressmen,  because  he  had 
supported  Clinton. 

In  February,  1821,  Van  Buren  gained  the  splendid 
promotion  to  the  federal  senate.  He  was  elected  by 
the  Bucktails  against  Nathan  Sanford,  the  sitting  sena 
tor,  who  was  supported  by  the  Clintonians  and  Federal 
ists.  Van  Buren  was  now  thirty-eight  years  old,  and  in 
the  early  prime  of  his  powers.  He  had  run  the  gaunt 
let  of  two  popular  elections ;  he  had  been  easily  first 
among  the  Republicans  of  the  state  senate  ;  he  had 
there  shown  extraordinary  political  skill  and  an  intelli 
gent  and  public  spirit ;  he  had  ably  administered  the 
chief  law  office  of  the  State,  which  was  not  judicial. 
Though  not  yet  keenly  interested  in  any  federal  ques 
tion,  —  for  his  activity  and  thought  had  been  sufficiently 
engaged  in  affairs  of  his  own  state,  — he  turned  to  the 
new  field  with  an  easy  confidence,  amply  justified  by  his 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  65 

mastery  of  the  problems  with  which  he  had  so  far  grap 
pled.  He  reached  Washington  the  undoubted  leader 
of  his  party  in  the  state.  The  prestige  of  Governor 
Tompkins,  although  just  reflected  vice-president,  had 
suffered  from  his  recent  defeat  for  the  governorship,  and 
from  his  pecuniary  and  other  difficulties  ;  and  besides, 
he  obviously  had  not  Van  Buren's  unrivaled  equipment 
for  political  leadership. 

Before  Van  Buren  attended  his  first  session  in  the 
federal  capital  he  performed  for  the  public  most  honor 
able  service  in  the  state  constitutional  convention  which 
sat  in  the  autumn  of  1821.  This  body  illustrated  the 
earnest  and  wholesome  temper  in  which  the  most  pow 
erful  public  men  of  the  state,  after  many  exhibitions  of 
partisan,  personal,  and  even  petty  animosities,  could 
treat  so  serious  and  abiding  a  matter  as  its  fundamental 
law.  The  Democrats  sent  Vice-President  Tompkins, 
both  the  United  States  senators,  King  and  Van  Buren, 
the  late  senator,  Sanford,  and  Samuel  Nelson,  then  be 
ginning  a  long  and  honorable  career.  The  Clintonians 
and  Federalists  sent  Chancellor  Kent  and  Ambrose 
Spencer,  the  chief  justice.  Van  Buren  was  chosen  from 
Otsego,  and  not  from  his  own  county,  probably  because 
the  latter  was  politically  unfavorable  to  him. 

This   convention  was  one  of  the  steps  in  the  demo 
cratic  march.     It  was  called  to  broaden  the  suffrage,  to 
break  up  the  central  source  of  patronage  at  Albany,  and 
to  enlarge  local  self-administration.     The    government 
of  New  York  had  so  far  been  a  freeholders'  government, 
i  with  those  great  virtues,  and  those  greater  and  more 
|  enduring  vices,  which  were  characteristic  of  a  govern- 
1  ment  controlled  exclusively  by  the  owners  of  land.    The 
painful  apprehension  aroused  by  the  democratic  resolu- 


66  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

tion  to  reduce,  if  not  altogether  to  destroy,  the  exclusive 
privileges  of  land-owners,  was  expressed  in  the  conven 
tion  by  Chancellor  Kent.  He  would  not  "  bow  before 
the  idol  of  universal  suffrage ; "  this  extreme  democratic 
principle,  he  said,  had  "  been  regarded  with  terror  by 
the  wise  men  of  every  age  ;  "  wherever  tried,  it  had 
brought  "  corruption,  injustice,  violence,  and  tyranny  ;  " 
if  adopted,  posterity  would  "  deplore  in  sackcloth  and 
ashes  the  delusion  of  the  day."  He  wished  no  laws  to 
pass  without  the  free  consent  of  the  owners  of  the  soil. 
He  did  not  foresee  English  parliaments  elected  in  1885 
and  1886  by  a  suffrage  not  very  far  from  universal,  or 
a  royal  jubilee  celebrated  by  democratic  masses,  or  the 
prudent  conservatism  in  matters  of  property  of  the  en 
franchised  French  democracy,  —  he  foresaw  none  of 
these  when  he  declared  that  England  and  France  could 
not  sustain  the  weight  of  universal  suffrage  ;  that  "  the 
radicals  of  England,  with  the  force  of  that  mighty  en 
gine,  would  at  once  sweep  away  the  property,  the  laws, 
and  the  liberty  of  that  island  like  a  deluge."  Van 
Buren  distinguished  himself  in  the  debate.  Upon  this 
exciting  and  paramount  topic  he  did  not  share  the  tem 
per  which  possessed  most  of  his  party.  His  speech  was 
clear,  explicit,  philosophical,  and  really  statesmanlike. 
It  so  impressed  even  his  adversaries ;  and  Hammond, 
one  of  them,  declared  that  he  ought  for  it  to  be  ranked 
"  among  the  most  shining  orators  and  able  statesmen  of 
the  age." 

In  reading  this,  or  indeed  any  of  the  utterances  of 
Van  Buren  where  the  occasion  required  distinctness,  it 
is  difficult  to  find  tlie  ground  of  the  charge  of  "  non- 
cornmittalism  "  so  incessantly  made  against  him.  He 
doubtless  refrained  from  taking  sides  on  questions  not 


CONSTITUTIONAL   CONVENTION.  67 

yet  ripe  for  decision,  however  clear,  and  whatever  may 
have  been  his  speculative  opinions.  But  this  is  the  duty 
of  every  statesman  ;  it  has  been  the  practice  of  every 
politician  who  has  promoted  reform.  Van  Buren  now 
pointed  out  how  completely  the  events  of  the  forty  years 
past  had  discredited  the  grave  speculative  fears  of 
Franklin,  Hamilton,  and  Madison  upon  provisions  of  the 
Federal  Constitution.  With  Burke  he  believed  expe 
rience  to  be  the  only  unerring  touchstone.  He  conclu 
sively  showed  that  property  had  been  as  safe  in  those 
American  communities  which  had  universal  suffrage  as 
in  the  few  which  retained  a  property  qualification  ;  that 
venality  in  voting,  apprehended  from  the  change,  al 
ready  existed  in  the  grossest  forms  at  the  parliamentary 
elections  of  England.  Going  to  the  truth  which  is  at 
the  dynamic  source  of  democratic  institutions,  he  told 
the  chancellor  that  when  in  America  the  principles  of 
order  and  good  government  should  yield  to  principles  of 
anarchy  and  violence  and  permit  attacks  on  private  prop 
erty  or  an  agrarian  law,  all  constitutional  provisions 
would  be  idle  and  unavailing,  because  they  would  have 
lost  all  their  force  and  influence.  With  a  true  instinct, 
however,  Van  Buren  wished  the  steps  to  be  taken  gradu 
ally.  He  was  not  yet  ready,  he  said,  to  admit  to  the 
suffrage  the  shifting  population  of  cities,  held  to  the 
government  by  no  other  ties  than  the  mere  right  to  vote. 
He  was  not  ready  for  a  really  universal  suffrage.  The 
voter  ought,  if  he  did  not  participate  in  the  government 
by  paying  taxes  or  performing  militia  duty,  to  be  a  man 
who  was  a  householder  with  some  of  the  elements  of 
stability,  with  something  at  stake  in  the  community. 
Although  they  had  reached  "  the  verge  of  universal 
suffrage,"  he  could  not  with  his  Democratic  friends  take 


68  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

the  "  one  step  beyond  ;  "  lie  would  not  cheapen  the  in 
valuable  right  by  conferring  it  with  undiscriminating 
hand  "  on  every  one,  black  or  white,  who  would  be  kind 
enough  to  condescend  to  accept  it."  Though  a  Democrat 
he  was  opposed,  he  said,  to  a  "  precipitate  and  unex 
pected  prostration  of  all  qualifications  ;  "  he  looked  with 
dread  upon  increasing  the  voters  in  New  York  city  from 
thirteen  or  fourteen  thousand  to  twenty-five  thousand, 
believing  (curious  prediction  for  a  father  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party !)  that  the  increase  "  would  render  their  elec 
tions  rather  a  curse  than  a  blessing,"  and  "  would  drive 
from  the  polls  all  sober-minded  people." 

The  universal  suffrage  then  postponed  was  wisely 
adopted  a  few  years  later.  Democracy  marched  steadily 
on  ;  and  Van  Buren  was  willing,  probably  very  willing, 
to  be  guided  by  experience.  He  opposed  in  the  conven 
tion  a  proposal  supported  by  most  of  his  party  to  restrict 
suffrage  to  white  citizens,  but  favored  a  property  quali 
fication  for  black  men,  the  $250  freehold  ownership 
until  then  required  of  white  voters.  He  would  not,  he 
said,  draw  from  them  a  revenue  and  yet  deny  them  the 
right  of  suffrage.  Twenty-five  years  later,  in  1846, 
nearly  three-fourths  of  the  voters  of  the  state  refused 
equal  suffrage  to  the  blacks  ;  and  even  in  1869,  six 
years  after  the  emancipation  proclamation,  a  majority 
still  refused  to  give  them  the  same  rights  as  white  men. 

The  question  of  appointments  to  office  was  the  chief 
topic  in  the  convention.  Van  Buren,  as  chairman  of 
the  committee  on  this  subject,  made  an  interesting  and 
able  report.  It  was  unanimously  agreed  that  the  use 
of  patronage  by  the  council  of  appointment  had  been  a 
scandal.  Only  a  few  members  voted  to  retain  the  coun 
cil,  even  if  it  were  to  be  elected  by  the  people.  He 


CONSTITUTIONAL   CONVENTION.  69 

recommended  that  military  officers,  except  the  highest, 
be  elected  by  the  privates  and  officers  of  militia.  Of 
the  6,663  civil  officers  whose  appointment  and  removal 
by  the  council  had  for  twenty  years  kept  the  state  in 
turmoil,  he  recommended  that  3,643,  being  notaries, 
commissioners,  masters  and  examiners  in  chancery,  and 
other  lesser  officers,  should  be  appointed  under  general 
laws  to  be  enacted  by  the  legislature ;  the  clerks  of 
courts  and  district  attorneys  should  be  appointed  by 
the  common  pleas  courts  ;  mayors  and  clerks  of  cities 
should  be  appointed  by  their  common  councils,  except 
in  New  York,  where  for  years  afterwards  the  mayors 
were  appointed ;  the  heads  of  the  state  departments 
should  be  appointed  by  the  legislature  ;  and  all  other 
officers,  including  surrogates  and  justices  of  the  peace 
as  well  as  the  greater  judicial  officers,  should  be  ap 
pointed  by  the  governor  upon  the  confirmation  of  the 
senate.  Van  Buren  declared  himself  opposed,  here 
again  separating  himself  from  many  of  his  party  associ 
ates,  to  the  popular  election  of  any  judicial  officers,  even 
the  justices  of  the  peace.  Of  all  this  he  was  long  after 
to  be  reminded  as  proof  of  his  aristocratic  contempt  for 
democracy.  His  recommendations  were  adopted  in  the 
main  ;  although  county  clerks  and  sheriffs,  whom  he 
would  have  kept  appointive,  were  made  elective.  Upon 
this  question  he  was  in  a  small  minority  with  Chancellor 
Kent  and  Rufus  King,  having  most  of  his  party  friends 
against  him.  Thus  was  broken  up  the  enormous  politi 
cal  power  so  long  wielded  at  Albany,  and  the  patronage 
distributed  through  the  counties.  The  change,  it  was 
supposed,  would  end  a  great  abuse.  It  did  end  the 
concentration  of  patronage  at  the  capital ;  but  the  par 
tisan  abuses  of  patronage  were  simply  transferred  to 


70  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  various    county  seats,    to    exercise  a  different  and 
wider,  though  probably  a  less  dangerous,  corruption. 

The  council  of  revision  fell  with  hardly  a  friend  to 
speak  for  it.  It  was  one  of  those  checks  upon  popular 
power  of  which  Federalists  had  been  fond.  It  con 
sisted  of  the  governor  with  the  chancellor  arid  the  judges 
of  the  supreme  court,  and  had  a  veto  power  upon  bills 
passed  by  the  legislature.  As  the  chancellor  and  judges 
held  office  during  good  behavior  until  they  had  reached 
the  limit  of  age,  the  council  was  almost  a  small  chamber 
of  life  peers.  The  exercise  of  its  power  had  provoked 
great  animosity.  The  chief  judicial  officers  of  the  state, 
judges,  and  chancellors,  to  whom  men  of  our  day  look 
back  with  a  real  veneration,  had  been  drawn  by  it  into 
a  kind  of  political  warfare,  in  which  few  of  our  higher 
magistrates,  though  popularly  elected  and  for  terms, 
would  dare  to  engage.  An  act  had  been  passed  by  the 
legislature  in  1814  to  promote  privateering  ;  but  Chan 
cellor  Kent  as  a  member  of  the  council  objected  to  it. 
Van  Buren  maintained  with  him  an  open  and  heated 
discussion  upon  the  propriety  of  the  objections,  —  a  dis 
cussion  in  which  the  judicial  character  justly  enough 
afforded  no  protection.  Van  Buren's  feeling  against 
the  judges  who  were  his  political  adversaries  was  often 
exhibited.  He  said  in  the  convention  :  "  I  object  to  the 
council,  as  being  composed  of  the  judiciary,  who  are  not 
directly  responsible  to  the  people.  I  object  to  it  be 
cause  it  inevitably  connects  the  judiciary  —  those  who, 
with  pure  hearts  and  sound  heads,  should  preside  in  the 
sanctuaries  of  justice  —  with  the  intrigues  and  collisions 
of  party  strife  ;  because  it  tends  to  make  our  judges 
politicians,  and  because  such  has  been  its  practical 
effect."  He  further  said  that  he  would  not  join  in 


CONSTITUTIONAL    CONVENTION.  71 

the  rather  courtly  observation  that  the  council  was 
abolished  because  of  a  personal  regard  for  the  peace  of 
its  members.  He  would  have  it  expressly  remembered 
that  the  council  had  served  the  ends  of  faction ;  though 
he  added  that  he  should  regard  the  loss  of  Chancellor 
Kent  from  his  judicial  station  as  a  public  calamity.  In 
his  general  position  Van  Buren  was  clearly  right. 
Again  and  again  have  theorists,  supposing  judges  to  be 
sanctified  and  illumined  by  their  offices,  placed  in  their 
hands  political  power,  which  had  been  abused,  or  it  was 
feared  would  be  abused,  by  men  fancied  to  occupy  less 
exalted  stations.  Again  and  again  has  the  result  shown 
that  judges  are  only  men,  with  human  passions,  preju 
dices,  and  ignorance  ;  men  who,  if  vested  with  functions 
not  judicial,  if  freed  from  the  checks  of  precedents  and 
law  and  public  hearings  and  appellate  review,  fall  into 
the  same  abuses  and  act  on  the  same  motives,  political 
and  personal,  which  belong  to  other  men.  In  the  coun 
cil  of  revision  before  1821  and  the  electoral  commission 
of  1877  were  signally  proved  the  wisdom  of  restricting 
judges  to  the  work  of  deciding  rights  between  parties 
judicially  brought  before  them. 

Van  Buren's  far  from  "  non-committal  "  talk  about 
the  judges  was  not  followed  by  any  support  of  the  pro 
posal,  in  the  horrid  expression  of  the  time,  to  "  constitu- 
tionize  "  them  out  of  office.  The  animosity  of  a  major 
ity  of  the  members  against  the  judges  then  in  office  was 
intense  ;  and  they  were  not  willing  to  accept  the  life  of 
the  council  of  revision  as  a  sufficient  sacrifice.  Nor 
was  the  animosity  entirely  unreasonable.  Butler,  in  one 
of  his  early  letters  to  Jesse  Hoyt,  described  the  auster 
ity  with  which  Ambrose  Spencer,  the  chief  justice,  when 
the  young  lawyer  sought  to  address  him,  told  him  to 


72  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

wait  until  his  seniors  had  been  heard.  In  the  conven 
tion  there  were  doubtless  many  who  had  been  offended 
with  a  certain  insolence  of  place  which  to  this  day 
characterizes  the  bearing  of  many  judges  of  real  ability ; 
and  the  opportunity  of  making  repayment  was  eagerly 
seized.  Nor  was  it  unreasonable  that  laymen  should, 
from  the  proceedings  of  judges  when  acting  upon  polit 
ical  matters  which  laymen  understood  as  well  as  they, 
make  inferences  about  the  fairness  of  their  proceedings 
on  the  bench  upon  which  laymen  could  not  always 
safely  speak.  By  a  vote  of  66  to  39,  the  convention  re 
fused  to  retain  the  judges  then  in  office,  — a  proceeding 
which,  with  all  the  faults  justly  or  even  naturally  found 
with  them,  was  a  gross  violation  of  the  fundamental 
rule  which  ought  to  guide  civilized  lands  in  changing 
their  laws.  For  the  retention  of  the  judges  was  per 
fectly  consistent  with  the  judicial  scheme  adopted.  Van 
Buren  put  all  this  most  admirably  before  voting  with 
the  minority.  He  told  the  convention,  and  doubtless 
truly,  that  from  the  bench  of  judges,  whose  official  fate 
was  then  at  their  mercy,  he  had  been  assailed  "  with 
hostility,  political,  professional,  and  personal,  —  hostility 
which  had  been  the  most  keen,  active,  and  unyielding ;  " 
but  that  he  would  not  indulge  individual  resentment  in 
the  prostration  of  his  private  and  political  adversary. 
The  judicial  officer,  who  could  not  be  reached  by  im 
peachment  or  the  proceeding  for  removal  by  a  two- 
thirds  vote,  ought  not  to  be  disturbed.  They  should 
amend  the  constitution,  he  told  the  convention,  upon 
general  principles,  and  not  descend  to  pull  down  obnox 
ious  officers.  He  begged  it  not  to  ruin  its  character  and 
credit  by  proceeding  to  such  extremities.  But  the  re 
moval  of  the  judges  did  not  prove  unpopular.  Only 


CONSTITUTIONAL   CONVENTION.  73 

eight  members  of  the  convention  voted  against  the  con 
stitution  ;  only  fifteen  others  did  not  sign  it.  And  the 
freeholders  of  the  state,  while  deliberately  surrendering 
some  of  their  exclusive  privileges,  adopted  it  by  a  vote 
of  75,422  to  41,497. 

Van  Buren's  service  in  this  convention  was  that  of  a 
firm,  sensible,  far-seeing  man,  resolute  to  make  demo 
cratic  progress,  but  unwilling,  without  further  light  from 
experience,  to  take  extreme  steps  difficult  to  retrace. 
With  a  strong  inclination  towards  great  enlargement 
of  the  suffrage,  he  pointed  out  that  a  mistake  in  going 
too  far  could  never  be  righted  "  except  by  the  sword." 
The  wisdom  of  enduring  temporary  difficulties,  rather 
than  to  make  theoretical  changes  greater  than  were 
necessary  to  obviate  serious  and  great  wrongs,  was 
common  to  him  with  the  highest  and  most  influential 
type  of  modern  law-makers.  With  some  men  of  the 
first  rank,  the  convention  had  in  it  very  many  others 
crudely  equipped  for  its  work ;  and  it  met  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  personal  and  political  asperity  unfavorable  to 
deliberations  over  organic  law.  Van  Euren  was  politi 
cally  its  most  powerful  member.  It  is  clear  that  his 
always  conservative  temper,  aided  by  his  tact  and  by 
his  temperate  and  persuasive  eloquence,  held  back  his 
Democratic  associates,  headed  by  the  impetuous  and 
angered  General  Root,  from  changes  far  more  radical 
than  those  which  were  made.  He  showed  on  this  con 
spicuous  field,  and  while  eminent  as  a  party  man,  un 
doubted  courage  and  independence  and  high  sense  of 
duty.  Entering  national  politics  he  was  fortunate  there 
fore  to  be  known,  not  only  as  a  skillful  and  adroit 
and  even  managing  politician,  as  a  vigorous  and  clear 
debater,  as  a  successful  leader  in  popular  movements. 


74  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

but  also  as  a  man  of  firm  and  upright  patriotism,  with 
a  ripe  and  educated  sense  of  the  complexity  of  popular 
government,  and  a  sober  appreciation  of  the  kind  of 
dangers  so  subtly  mingled  with  the  blessings  of  democ 
racy. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

UNITED   STATES   SENATOR.  —  REESTABLISHMENT    OF 
PARTIES. PARTY   LEADERSHIP. 

IN  December,  1821,  Van  Buren  took  his  seat  in  the 
United  States  senate.     The  "era  of  good  feeling"  was 
then  at  its  height.     It  was  with  perfect  sincerity  that 
Monroe  in  his  message  of  the  preceding  year  had  said : 
"  I  see  much  cause  to  rejoice  in  the  felicity  of  our  situa 
tion."     He  had  just  been  reflected  president  with  but  a 
single  vote  against  him.     The  country  was  in  profound 
peace.     The  burdens  of  the  war  with  England  were  no 
longer  felt ;  and  its  few  victories  were  remembered  with 
exuberant  good-nature.     Two  years  before,  Florida  had 
been  acquired  by  the  strong  and  persisting  hand  of  the 
younger   Adams.     Wealth  and  comfort  were  in  rapid 
increase.      The  moans  and  rage   of  the  defeated  and 
disgraced  Federalists  were  suppressed,  or,  if  now  and 
then  feebly  heard,   were  complacently  treated  as  out 
bursts  of  senility  and  impotence.     People  were  not  only 
well-to-do  in  fact,  but,  what  was  far  more  extraordinary, 
they  believed  themselves  to  be  so.     In  his  great  tariff 
speech  but  three  or  four  years  later,  Hayne  called  it  the 
"  period  of  general  jubilee."     Every  great  public  paper 
and  speech  described  the  "  felicity  "  of  America.     The 
president  pointed  out  to  his  fellow-citizens  "the  pros 
perous  and  happy  condition  of  our  country  in  all  the 
great  circumstances   which  constitute  the  felicity  of  a 


76  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN 

nation ;  "  he  boldly  admonished  them  that  they  were  "  a 
free,  virtuous,  and  enlightened  people ; "  the  unanimity 
of  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  his  "  humble  preten 
sions "  indicated,  he  thought,  "the  great  strength  and 
stability  of  our  Union."  And  all  was  reciprocated  by 
the  people.  This  modest,  gentle  ruler  was  in  his  very 
mediocrity  agreeable  to  them.  He  symbolized  the  com 
fort  and  order,  the  supreme  respectability  of  which  they 
were  proud.  When  in  1817  he  made  a  tour  through 
New  England,  which  had  seen  neither  Jefferson  nor 
Madison  as  visitors  during  their  terms  of  office,  and  in 
his  military  coat  of  domestic  manufacture,  his  light 
small-clothes  and  cocked  hat,  met  processions  and  ora 
tors  without  end,  it  was  obvious  that  this  was  not  the 
radical  minister  whom  Washington  had  recalled  from 
Jacobin  Paris  for  effusively  pledging  eternal  friendship 
and  submitting  to  fraternal  embraces  in  the  national 
convention.  Such  youthful  frenzy  was  now  long  past. 
America  was  enjoying  a  great  national  idyl.  Even  the 
Federalists,  except  of  course  those  who  had  been  too 
violent  or  who  were  still  unrepentant,  were  not  utterly 
shut  out  from  the  light  of  the  placid  high  noon.  Jack 
son  had  urged  Monroe  in  1816  "  to  exterminate  that 
monster  called  party  spirit,"  and  to  let  some  Federalists 
come  to  the  board.  Monroe  thought,  however,  "that 
the  administration  should  rest  strongly  on  the  Republi 
can  party,"  though  meaning  to  bring  all  citizens  "  into 
the  Republican  fold  as  quietly  as  possible."  Party, 
he  declared,  was  unnecessary  to  free  government ;  all 
should  be  Republicans.  And  when  Van  Buren  reached 
the  sprawling,  slatternly  American  capital  in  1821,  all 
were  Republicans. 

There   were  of  course  personal  feuds  in  this  great 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  77 

political  family.  Those  of  New  York  were  the  most 
notorious ;  but  there  were  many  others.  But  such 
rivalries  and  quarrels  were  only  a  proof  of  the  political 
calm.  When  families  are  smugly  prosperous  they  in 
dulge  petty  dislikes,  which  disappear  before  storm  or 
tragedy.  The  halcyon  days  could  not  last.  Monroe's 
dream  of  a  country  with  but  one  party,  and  that  basking 
in  perpetual  "  felicity,"  was,  in  spite  of  what  seemed 
for  the  moment  a  close  realization,  as  far  from  the  truth 
as  the  dreams  of  later  reformers  who  would  in  politics 
organize  all  the  honest,  respectable  folk  together  against 
all  the  dishonest. 

The  heat  of  the  Missouri  question  was  ended  at  the 
session  before  Van  Buren's  senatorial  term  began.  It 
seemed  only  a  thunder-storm  passing  across  a  rich,  warm 
day  in  harvest  time,  angry  and  agitating  for  the  moment, 
but  quickly  forgotten  by  dwellers  in  the  pastoral  scene 
when  the  rainbow  of  compromise  appeared  in  the  de 
lightful  hues  of  Henry  Clay's  eloquence.  The  elements 
of  the  tremendous  struggle  yet  to  come  were  in  the 
atmosphere,  but  they  were  not  visible.  The  slavery 
question  had  no  political  importance  to  Van  Buren 
until  fourteen  years  afterwards.  In  judging  the  men 
of  that  day  we  shall  seriously  mistake  if  we  set  up  our 
own  standards  among  their  ideas.  The  moral  growth 
in  the  twenty-five  years  since  the  emancipation  makes 
it  irksome  to  be  fair  to  the  views  of  the  past  generation, 
or  indeed  to  the  former  views  of  half  of  our  present 
generation.  Slavery  has  come  to  seem  intrinsically 
wicked,  hideous,  to  be  hated  everywhere.  But  sixty- 
five  years  ago  it  still  lingered  in  several  of  the  north 
ern  states.  It  was  wrong  indeed  ;  but  the  temper  of 
condemnation  towards  it  was  Platonic,  full  of  the  un- 


78  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

availing  and  unpoignant  regret  with  which  men  hear  of 
poverty  and  starvation  and  disease  and  crime  which 
they  do  not  see  and  which  they  cannot  help.  Nor  did 
slavery  then  seem  to  the  best  of  men  so  very  great  a 
wrong  even  to  the  blacks  ;  there  were,  it  was  thought, 
many  ameliorations  and  compensations.  Men  were 
glad  to  believe  and  did  believe  that  the  human  chattels 
were  better  and  happier  than  they  would  have  been  in 
Africa.  The  economic  waste  of  slavery,  its  corrupting 
and  enervating  effect  upon  the  whites,  were  thought  to 
be  objections  quite  as  serious.  Besides,  it  was  widely 
fancied  to  be  at  worst  but  a  temporary  evil.  Jefferson's 
dislike  of  it  was  shared  by  many  through  the  South  as 
well  as  the  North.  The  advantages  of  a  free  soil  were 
becoming  so  apparent  in  the  strides  by  which  the  North 
was  passing  the  South  in  every  material  advantage,  that 
the  latter,  it  seemed,  must  surely  learn  the  lesson.  For 
the  institution  within  states  already  admitted  to  the 
Union,  anti-slavery  men  felt  no  responsibility.  Forty 
years  later  the  great  leader  of  the  modern  Republican 
party  would  not,  he  solemnly  declared  in  the  very  midst 
of  a  pro-slavery  rebellion,  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
states  if  the  Union  could  be  saved  without  disturbing  it. 
If  men  in  South  Carolina  cared  to  maintain  a  ruinous 
and  corrupting  domestic  institution,  even  if  it  were  a 
greater  wrong  against  the  slaves  than  it  was  believed  to 
be,  or  even  if  it  were  an  injury  to  the  whites  themselves, 
still  men  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  ought,  it 
seemed  to  them,  to  be  no  more  disturbed  over  it  than  we 
feel  bound  to  be  over  polygamy  in  Turkey. 

But  as  to  the  territory  west  of  the  Mississippi  not  yet 
formed  into  states,  there  was  a  different  sentiment  held  by 
a  great  majority  at  the  North  and  by  many  at  the  South. 


THE  MISSOURI    QUESTION.  79 

Slavery   was    not   established    there.      The   land    was 
national  domain,  whose  forms  of  political  and  social  life 
were  yet  to  be  set  up.     Why  not,  before  the  embarrass 
ments  of  slave  settlement  arose,  devote  this  new  land  to 
freedom,  not  so  much  to  freedom  as  that  shining  god 
dess  of  mercy  and  right  and  justice  who  rose  clear  and 
obvious  to  our  purged  vision    out  of  the  civil  war,  as 
to  the  less  noble  deities  of  economic  wellbeing,  thrift, 
and  industrial  comfort  ?    Democrats  at  the  North,  there 
fore,  were  almost  unanimous  that  Missouri  should  come 
in  free  or  not  at  all ;  and  so  with  the  rest  of  the  terri 
tory  beyond  the  Mississippi,  except  the  old  slave  settle 
ment  of  Louisiana,  already  admitted  as  a  state.     The 
resolution  in  the  legislature  of  New  York  in  January, 
1820,  supported  by  Van  Buren,  that  freedom  be  "  an 
indispensable    condition  of  admission  "  of    new  states, 
was  but  one  of  many  exhibitions  of  feeling  at  the  North. 
Monroe  and  the  very  best  of  Americans  did  not,  how 
ever,  think  the  principle  so  sacred   or  necessary  as  to 
justify  a  struggle.     John  Quincy  Adams,  hating  slavery 
as  did  but  few  Americans,  distinctly  favored  the  com 
promise  by  which  Missouri  came  in  with  slavery,  and 
by  which  the  other  new  territory  north  of  the  present 
southern  line  of  Missouri  extended  westward  was  to  be 
free,  and  the  territory  south  of  it  slave.     With  no  shame 
he  acquiesced  in  the  very  thing  about  which  forty  years 
later  the  nation  plunged  into  war.     "  For  the  present," 
he  wrote,  "  this  contest  is  laid  asleep."     So  the  flood  of 
peaceful  sunshine  and  prosperity  returned  over  the  land. 
Van  Buren's  views  at  this  time  were  doubtless  clear 
against  the  extension  of  slavery.     He  disliked  the  in 
stitution  ;  and   in    part    saw  how  inconsistent  were  its 
odious   practices  with   the  best  civic  growth,  how  de- 


80  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

basing  to  whites  and  blacks  alike.  In  March,  1822,  he 
voted  in  the  senate,  with  Harrison  Gray  Otis  of  Massa 
chusetts  and  Rufus  King,  for  a  proviso  in  the  bill  creat 
ing  the  new  territory  of  Florida  by  which  the  introduc 
tion  of  slaves  was  forbidden  except  by  citizens  removing 
there  for  actual  settlement,  and  by  which  slaves  intro 
duced  in  violation  of  the  law  were  to  be  freed.  But  he 
was  in  a  minority.  Northern  senators  from  Rhode  Is 
land,  New  Jersey,  and  Indiana  refused  to  interfere  with 
free  trade  in  slaves  between  the  southern  states  and  this 
southernmost  territory. 

Among  the  forty-eight  members  of  the  senate  which 
met  in  December,  1821,  neither  Clay  nor  Calhoun  nor 
Webster  had  a  seat.  The  first  was  restless  in  one  of 
his  brief  absences  from  official  life  ;  the  second  was 
secretary  of  war  ;  and  Webster,  out  of  Congress,  was 
making  great  law  arguments  and  greater  orations.  Ben- 
ton  was  there  from  the  new  state  of  Missouri,  just  begin 
ning  his  thirty  years.  The  warm  friendship  and  polit 
ical  alliance  between  him  and  Van  Buren  must  have 
soon  begun.  During  all  or  nearly  all  Van  Buren 's  sen- 
atorship  the  two  occupied  adjoining  seats.  Two  years 
later  Andrew  Jackson  was  sent  to  the  senate  by  Ten 
nessee,  as  a  suitable  preliminary  to  his  presidential  can 
vass.  During  the  next  two  sessions  Van  Buren,  Benton, 
and  Jackson  were  thrown  together  ;  and  without  doubt 
the  foundations  were  laid  of  their  lifelong  intimacy 
and  political  affection.  Benton  and  Jackson,  personal 
enemies  years  before,  had  become  reconciled.  Among 
these  associates  Van  Buren  adhered  firmly  enough  to 
his  own  clear  views ;  he  did  not  turn  obsequiously  to 
the  rising  sun  of  Tennessee.  William  H.  Crawford,  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  had,  in  the  Republican  con- 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  81 

gressional  caucus  of  1816,  stood  next  Monroe  for  the 
presidential  nomination.  For  reasons  which  neither 
history  nor  tradition  seems  sufficiently  to  have  brought 
us,  he  inspired  a  strong  and  even  enthusiastic  loyalty 
among  many  of  his  party.  His  candidacy  in  1824  was 
more  "  regular  "  than  that  of  either  Adams,  Jackson,  or 
Clay,  whose  friends  combined  against  him  as  the  strong 
est  of  them  all.  Though  Crawford  had  been  prostrated 
by  serious  disease  in  1823,  Van  Buren  remained  faithful 
to  him  until,  in  1825,  after  refusing  a  seat  in  Adams's 
cabinet,  the  latter  retired  from  national  public  life  a  thor 
oughly  broken  man. 

The  first  two  sessions  of  Congress,  after  Van  Buren's 
service  began,  seem  drowsy  enough.  French  land-titles 
in  Louisiana,  the  settlement  of  the  accounts  of  public 
officers,  the  attempt  to  abolish  imprisonment  for  debt, 
the  appropriation  for  money  for  diplomatic  representa 
tives  to  the  new  South  American  states  and  their  recog 
nition,  —  nothing  more  exciting  than  these  arose,  except 
Monroe's  veto,  in  May,  1822,  of  the  bill  authorizing  the 
erection  of  toll-gates  upon  the  Cumberland  road  and 
appropriating  $9,000  for  them.  This  brought  distinctly 
before  the  public  the  great  question  of  internal  improve 
ments  by  the  federal  government,  which  Van  Buren, 
Benton,  and  Jackson  afterwards  chose  as  one  of  the  chief 
battle-grounds  for  their  party.  For  this  bill  Van  Buren 
indeed  voted,  while  Benton  afterwards  boasted  that  he 
was  one  of  the  small  minority  of  seven  who  discerned 
its  true  character.  But  this  trifling  appropriation  was 
declared  by  Barbour,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  measure, 
not  to  involve  the  general  question ;  it  was  said  to  be  a 
mere  incident  necessary  to  save  from  destruction  a  work 
for  which  earlier  statesmen  were  responsible.  Monroe, 


82  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

though  declaring  in  his  veto  that  the  power  to  adopt 
and  execute  a  system  of  internal  improvements  national 
in  their  character  would  have  the  happiest  effect  on  all 
the  great  interests  of  the  Union,  decided  that  the  Con 
stitution  gave  no  such  power.  Six  years  later,  in  a  note 
to  his  speech  upon  the  power  of  the  vice-president  to 
call  to  order  for  words  spoken  in  debate  in  the  senate, 
Van  Buren  apologized  for  his  vote  on  the  bill,  because 
it  was  his  first  session,  and  because  he  was  sincerely 
desirous  to  aid  the  western  country  and  had  voted  with 
out  full  examination.  He  added  that  if  the  question 
were  again  presented  to  him,  he  should  vote  in  the  nega 
tive  ;  and  that  it  had  been  his  only  vote  in  seven  years 
of  service  which  the  most  fastidious  critic  could  torture 
into  an  inconsistency  with  his  principles  upon  internal 
improvements.  In  January,  1823,  during  his  second 
session,  Van  Buren  spoke  and  voted  in  favor  of  the  bill 
to  repair  the  road,  but  still  took  no  decided  ground  upon 
the  general  question.  He  said  that  the  large  expendi 
ture  already  made  on  the  road  would  have  been  worse 
than  useless  if  it  were  now  suffered  to  decay ;  that  the 
road,  being  already  constructed,  ought  to  be  preserved  ; 
but  whether  he  would  vote  for  a  new  construction  he 
did  not  disclose.  Even  Benton,  who  was  proud  to  have 
been  one  of  the  small  minority  against  the  bill  of  the 
year  before  for  toll-gates  upon  the  road,  was  now  with 
Van  Buren,  constitutional  scruples  yielding  to  the  states 
manlike  reluctance  to  waste  an  investment  of  millions  of 
dollars  rather  than  spend  a  few  thousands  to  save  it. 

In  January,  1824,  Van  Buren  proposed  to  solve  these 
difficulties  by  a  constitutional  amendment.  Congress 
was  to  have  power  to  make  roads  and  canals,  but  the 
money  appropriated  was  to  be  apportioned  among  the 


INTERNAL   IMPROVEMENTS.  83 

states  according  to  population.  No  road  or  canal  was  to 
be  made  within  any  state  without  the  consent  of  its  legis 
lature  ;  and  the  money  was  to  be  expended  in  each  state 
under  the  direction  of  its  legislature.  This  proposal  seems 
to  have  fallen  still-born,  and  deservedly.  It  illustrated 
Van  Buren's  jealousy  of  interference  with  the  rights  of 
states.  But  the  right  of  each  state  to  be  protected,  he 
seemed  to  forget,  involved  its  right  not  to  be  taxed  for 
improvements  in  other  states  which  it  neither  controlled 
nor  promoted.  Van  Buren's  speech  in  support  of  the 
proposal  would  to-day  seem  very  heretical  to  his  party. 
A  dozen  years  later  he  himself  would  probably  have 
admitted  it  to  be  so.  He  then  believed  in  the  abstract 
proposition  that  such  funds  of  the  nation  as  could  be 
raised  without  oppression,  and  as  were  not  necessary  to 
the  discharge  of  indispensable  demands  upon  the  gov 
ernment,  should  be  expended  upon  internal  improve 
ments  under  restrictions  guarding  the  sovereignty  and 
equal  interests  of  the  states.  Henry  Clay  would  not  in 
theory  have  gone  much  further.  But  to  this  subject  in 
its  national  aspect  Van  Buren  had  probably  given  but 
slight  attention.  The  success  of  the  Erie  Canal,  with 
him  doubtless  as  with  others,  made  adverse  theories  of 
government  seem  less  impressive.  But  Van  Buren  and 
his  school  quickly  became  doubtful  and  soon  hostile  to 
the  federal  promotion  of  internal  improvements.  The 
opposition  became  popular  on  the  broader  reasoning 
that  great  expenditures  for  internal  improvements 
within  the  states  were  not  only,  as  the  statesmen  at  first 
argued,  violations  of  the  letter  of  the  Constitution,  whose 
sanctity  could,  however,  be  saved  by  proper  amendment, 
but  were  intrinsically  dangerous,  and  an  unwholesome 
extension  of  the  federal  power  which  ought  not  to  take 


84  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

place  whether  within  the  Constitution  or  by  amending 
it.  Aided  by  Jackson's  powerful  vetoes,  this  sentiment 
gained  a  strength  with  the  people  which  has  come  down 
to  our  day.  We  have  river  and  harbor  bills,  but  they 
are  supposed  to  touch  directly  or  indirectly  our  foreign 
commerce,  which,  under  the  Constitution  and  upon  the 
essential  theory  of  our  confederation,  is  a  subject  proper 
to  the  care  of  the  Union. 

In  the  same  session  Van  Buren  spoke  at  length  in 
favor  of  the  bill  to  abolish  imprisonment  for  debt,  and 
drew  with  precision  the  distinction  wisely  established 
by  modern  jurisprudence,  that  the  property  only,  and 
not  the  body  of  the  debtor,  should  be  at  the  mercy  of 
his  creditor,  where  the  debt  involved  no  fraud  or  breach 
of  trust. 

The  session  of  1823-1824  was  seriously  influenced 
by  the  coming  presidential  election.  The  protective 
tariff  of  1824  was  christened  with  the  absurd  name  of 
the  "  American  system,"  though  it  was  American  in  no 
other  or  better  sense  than  foreign  war  to  protect  fancied 
national  rights  is  an  American  system,  and  though  the 
system  had  come  from  the  middle  ages  in  the  company 
of  other  restrictions  upon  the  intercourse  of  nations.  It 
was  carried  by  the  factitious  help  of  this  designation  and 
the  fine  leadership  of  Clay.  With  Jackson  and  Benton, 
Van  Buren  voted  for  it,  against  men  differing  as  widely 
from  each  other  as  his  associate,  the  venerable  Feder 
alist  Rufus  King,  differed  from  Hayne,  the  brilliant 
orator  of  South  Carolina.  Upon  the  tariff  Van  Buren 
then  had  views  clearer,  at  least,  than  upon  internal  im 
provements.  In  1824  he  was  unmistakably  a  protec 
tionist.  The  moderation  of  his  views  and  the  pressure 
from  his  own  state  were  afterwards  set  up  as  defenses 


TARIFF  OF  1824.  85 

for  this  early  attitude  of  his.  But  he  declared  himself 
with  sufficient  plainness  not  only  to  believe  in  the  con 
stitutionality  of  a  protective  tariff,  but  that  1824  was  a 
fit  year  in  which  to  extend  its  protective  features.  He 
acted,  too,  with  the  amplest  light  upon  the  subject. 
The  dislike  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  the  hated  recollections 
of  the  Orders  in  Council  and  the  Napoleonic  decrees, 
the  idea  that,  for  self-defense  in  times  of  war,  the  coun 
try  must  be  forced  to  produce  many  goods  not  already 
produced,  —  these  considerations  had  great  weight,  as 
very  well  appears  in  the  speech  for  the  bill  delivered  by 
Richard  M.  Johnson  of  Kentucky,  afterwards  Van  Bu- 
ren's  associate  on  the  presidential  ticket.  "  When  the 
monarchs  of  Europe  are  assembled  together,  do  you 
think,"  he  asked,  "  that  we  are  not  a  subject  of  their 
holy  consultations  ?  "  But  the  support  of  the  bill  was 
upon  broader  considerations.  The  debates  upon  the 
tariff  in  the  house  of  representatives  in  February, 
March,  and  April,  and  in  the  senate  in  April,  1824, 
were  admirable  presentations  of  the  subject.  Webster 
in  the  house  and  Hayne  in  the  senate  put  the  free 
trade  side.  The  former,  still  speaking  his  own  senti 
ments,  declared  that  "  the  best  apology  for  laws  of  pro 
hibition  and  laws  of  monopoly  will  be  found  in  that 
state  of  society,  not  only  unenlightened  but  sluggish,  in 
which  they  are  most  generally  established."  But  now, 
he  said,  "  competition  comes  in  place  of  monopoly, 
and  intelligence  and  industry  ask  only  for  fair  play  and 
an  open  field."  He  repudiated  the  principle  of  protec 
tion.  "  On  the  contrary,"  said  he,  "  I  think  freedom  of 
trade  to  be  the  general  principle,  and  restriction  the 
exception." 

Nor  was  Van  Buren  then  left  without  the  light  which 


86  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

afterwards  reached  him  on  the  constitutional  question. 
Rufus  King  said  that,  if  gentlemen  wished  to  encourage 
the  production  of  hemp  and  iron,  they  ought  to  bring 
in  a  bill  to  give  bounties  on  those  articles  ;  for  there 
was  the  same  constitutional  right  to  grant  bounties  as  to 
levy  restrictive  duties  upon  foreign  products.  Hayne 
made  the  really  eloquent  and  masterly  speech  for  which 
he  ought  to  stand  in  the  first  rank  of  orators,  and  which 
summed  up  as  well  for  free-traders  now  as  then  the 
most  telling  arguments  against  artificial  restrictions. 
He  skillfully  closed  with  Washington's  words  :  "  Our 
commercial  policy  should  hold  an  equal  and  impartial 
hand,  neither  seeking  nor  granting  exclusive  favors  or 
preferences  ;  consulting  the  natural  course  of  things  ; 
diffusing  and  diversifying  by  gentle  means  the  streams 
of  commerce,  but  forcing  nothing."  Hayne  did  not 
confine  himself  to  the  doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  or  the 
hardships  which  protection  meant  to  a  planting  region 
like  his  own.  For  the  chief  interest  of  the  South  was 
in  cotton  ;  and  the  price  of  cotton  was  largely  deter 
mined  by  the  ability  of  foreigners  to  import  it  from 
America,  —  an  ability  in  its  turn  dependent  upon  the 
willingness  of  America  to  take  her  pay,  directly  or  indi 
rectly,  in  foreign  commodities.  Hayne,  however,  went 
further.  He  clearly  raised  the  question,  whether  the 
encouragement  of  manufactures  could  constitutionally 
be  made  a  federal  object- 
Sitting  day  after  day  under  this  long  debate  in  the 
little  senate  chamber  then  in  use,  where  men  listened 
to  speeches,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  they  were 
easily  heard,  Van  Buren  could  not,  with  his  ability  and 
readiness,  have  misunderstood  the  general  principles 
involved.  Early  in  the  debate,  upon  a  motion  to  strike 


TARIFF    OF  1824.  87 

out  the  duty  on  hemp,  he  briefly  but  explicitly  said  that 
"  he  was  in  favor  of  increasing  the  duty  on  hemp,  with 
a  view  of  affording  protection  to  its  cultivation  in  this 
country."  He  voted  against  limiting  the  duty  on  wool 
to  twenty-five  per  cent.,  but  voted  against  a  duty  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  on  India  silks,  —  a  revenue  rather 
than  a  protective  duty.  He  voted  for  duties  on  wheat 
and  wheat-flour  and  potatoes.  He  voted  against  strik 
ing  out  the  duty  on  books,  in  spite  of  Hayne's  grotesque 
but  forcible  argument  that  they  were  to  be  considered 
"  a  raw  material,  essential  to  the  formation  of  the  mind, 
the  morals,  and  the  character  of  the  people."  It  is  dif 
ficult  to  understand  the  significance  of  all  Van  Buren's 
votes  on  the  items  of  the  bill ;  but  the  record  shows 
them  to  have  been,  on  the  whole,  protectionist,  with  a 
preference  for  moderate  rates,  but  a  firm  assertion  of 
the  wool  interests  of  New  York.  Benton  tells  us  that 
Van  Buren  was  one  of  the  main  speakers  for  the  bill ; 
but  the  assertion  is  not  borne  out  by  the  record.  He 
delivered  no  general  speech  upon  the  subject,  as  did 
most  of  the  senators,  but  seems  to  have  spoken  only 
upon  some  of  the  details  as  they  were  considered  in 
committee  of  the  whole.  The  best  to  be  said  is,  that 
Van  Buren's  judgment  was  not  yet  so  ripe  upon  the 
matter  as  not  to  be  still  open  to  great  change.  He  was 
in  his  third  session,  and  still  new  to  national  politics, 
and  there  was  before  him  the  plain  and  strong  argu 
ment  that  his  state  wanted  protection.  In  1835  But 
ler,  speaking  for  him  as  a  presidential  candidate,  said 
that  his  personal  feelings  had  been  "  at  all  times  adverse 
to  the  high  tariff  policy."  But  "  high  tariff  "  was  then, 
as  now,  a  merely  relative  term.  His  votes  placed  him 
in  that  year  very  near  Henry  Clay.  That  from  1824 


88  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

he  grew  more  and  more  averse  to  the  necessary  details 
and  results  of  a  protective  policy  is  probably  true.  Nor 
ought  it  to  be,  even  from  the  standpoint  of  free-traders, 
serious  accusation  that  a  public  man  varies  his  political 
utterances  upon  the  tariff  question,  if  the  variation  be 
progressive  and  steadily  towards  what  they  deem  a 
greater  liberality.  To  Van  Buren,  however,  the  tariff 
question  never  had  a  capital  importance.  Even  thirty- 
two  years  later,  while  rehearsing  from  his  retirement  the 
achievements  of  his  party  in  excuse  of  the  support  he 
reluctantly  gave  Buchanan,  he  did  not  name  among  its 
services  its  insistence  upon  merely  revenue  duties,  al 
though  he  had  then  for  years  been  himself  committed 
to  that  doctrine. 

Van  Buren's  vote  for  the  tariff  of  1824  had  no  very 
direct  relation  to  his  political  situation.  His  own  suc 
cessor  was  not  to  be  chosen  for  nearly  three  years. 
Crawford,  whom  he  supported  for  the  presidency,  was 
the  only  one  of  the  four  candidates  opposed  to  the  bill. 
Adams  was  consistently  a  protectionist ;  he  believed  in 
actively  promoting  the  welfare  of  men,  though  chiefly  if 
not  exclusively  American  men,  even  when  they  resisted 
their  own  welfare.  He,  like  his  father,  was  perfectly 
ready  to  use  the  power  of  government  where  it  seem 
ingly  promised  to  be  effective,  without  caring  much  for 
economical  theories  or  constitutional  restrictions.  Jack 
son  himself  was  far  enough  away  from  the  ranks  of 
strict  constructionists  on  the  tariff.  In  April,  1824,  in 
the  midst  of  the  debate,  and  while  a  presidential  can 
didate,  he  wrote  from  the  senate  what  free-traders,  who 
afterwards  supported  him,  would  have  deemed  the  worst 
of  heresies.  Like  most  candidates,  ancient  and  modern, 
he  was  "  in  favor  of  a  judicious  examination  and  revi- 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  89 

sion  of  "  the  tariff.  He  would  advocate  a  tariff  so  far 
as  it  enabled  the  country  to  provide  itself  with  the 
means  of  defense  in  war.  But  he  would  go  further. 
The  tariff  ought  to  "  draw  from  agriculture  the  super 
abundant  labor,  and  employ  it  in  mechanism  and  man 
ufactures  ; "  it  ought  to  u  give  a  proper  distribution  to 
our  labor,  to  take  from  agriculture  in  the  United  States 
600,000  men,  women,  and  children."  It  is  time,  he 
cried,  and  quite  as  extravagantly  as  Clay,  that  "  we 
should  become  a  little  more  Americanized."  How 
slight  a  connection  the  tariff  had  with  the  election  of 
1824  is  further  seen  in  the  fact  that  Jackson,  who  thus 
supported  the  bill,  received  the  vote  of  several  of  the 
states  which  strongly  opposed  the  tariff. 

In  March,  1824,  Van  Buren  urged  the  senate  to  act 
upon  a  constitutional  amendment  touching  the  election 
of  president.  As  the  amendment  could  not  be  adopted 
in  time  to  affect  the  pending  canvass,  there  was,  he  said, 
no  room  for  partisan  feeling.  He  insisted  that  if  there 
were  no  majority  choice  by  the  electors,  the  choice 
should  not  rest  with  the  house  of  representatives  voting 
by  states,  but  that  the  electors  should  be  reconvened, 
and  themselves  choose  between  the  highest  two  candi 
dates.  The  debate  soon  became  thoroughly  partisan. 
Rufus  King,  with  but  thinly  veiled  reference  to  Craw 
ford's  nomination,  denounced  the  practice  by  which  a 
caucus  at  Washington  deprived  the  constitutional  elec 
tors  of  any  free  choice ;  members  of  Congress  were  at 
tending  to  president-making  rather  than  to  their  duties. 
He  thought  that  the  course  of  events  had  "  led  near 
observers  to  suspect  a  connection  existing  between  a 
central  power  of  this  description  at  the  seat  of  the  gen 
eral  government  and  the  legislatures  of  Georgia,  North 


90  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Carolina,  Virginia,  and  New  York,  and  perhaps  of  other 
states."  To  this  it  was  pointed  out  with  much  force 
that  such  a  caucus  had  chosen  Jefferson,  Madison,  and 
Monroe  without  scandal  or  injury ;  that  members  of 
Congress  were  distinguished  and  representative  persons 
familiar  with  national  affairs,  who  might  with  great 
advantage  respectfully  suggest  a  course  of  action  to  their 
fellow-citizens.  Van  Buren  went  keenly  to  the  real 
point  of  the  belated  objection  to  the  system  ;  it  lay  in 
the  particular  action  of  the  recent  caucus.  He  did  not 
think  it  worth  while  to  consider  "  those  nice  distinctions 
which  challenged  respect  for  the  proceedings  of  conven 
tions  of  one  description  and  denied  it  to  others;  or  to 
detect  those  still  more  subtle  refinements  which  regarded 
meetings  of  the  same  character  as  sometimes  proper,  and 
at  others  destructive  of  the  purity  of  elections  and  dan 
gerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  people."  After  much  talk 
about  the  will  of  the  people,  the  senate  by  a  vote  of 
30  to  13  postponed  the  consideration  of  the  amendments 
until  after  the  election.  Benton  joined  Van  Buren  in 
the  minority,  although  they  did  not  agree  upon  the  form 
of  amendment ;  but  Jackson,  perhaps  because  he  was  a 
candidate,  did  not  vote. 

It  was  highly  probable  that  there  would  be  embarrass 
ment  in  choosing  the  next  president.  It  was  already 
nearly  certain  that  neither  candidate  would  have  a  ma 
jority  of  the  electoral  votes.  The  decision  was  then,  as 
in  our  own  time,  supposed  to  rest  with  New  York  ;  and 
naturally  therefore  Van  Buren's  prestige  was  great, 
gained,  as  it  had  been,  in  that  difficult  and  opulent 
political  field.  His  attachment  to  Crawford  was  proof 
against  the  signs  of  the  latter's  decaying  strength. 
Crawford  was  to  him  the  Republican  candidate  regu- 


ELECTION  OF  1824.  91 

larly  chosen,  and  one  agreeable  to  his  party  by  the 
vigorous  democracy  of  his  sentiments.  His  opposition 
to  Jefferson's  embargo,  and  his  vote  for  a  renewal  of 
the  charter  of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  had  been 
forgotten  since  his  warm  advocacy  of  the  late  war  with 
England.  His  formal  claims  to  the  nomination  were 
great.  For  he  had  been  in  the  senate  as  early  as  1807, 
and  its  president  upon  the  death  of  Vice-President  Clin 
ton  in  1812  ;  afterwards  he  had  been  minister  to  France, 
and  was  now  secretary  of  the  treasury.  In  the  caucus 
of  1816  he  had  nearly  as  many  votes  as  Monroe ;  and 
those  votes  were  cast  for  him,  it  was  said,  though  with 
out  much  probability,  in  spite  of  his  peremptory  refusal 
to  compete  with  Monroe.  Moreover,  Crawford  had  a 
majesty  and  grace  of  personal  appearance  which,  with 
undoubtedly  good  though  not  great  abilities,  had,  apart 
from  these  details  of  his  career,  made  him  conspicuous 
in  the  Republican  ranks ;  and  in  its  chief  service  he 
was,  after  the  retirement  of  Monroe,  the  senior,  except 
Adams,  whose  candidacy  was  far  more  recent.  Craw 
ford's  claim  to  the  succession  was  therefore  very  justifi 
able  ;  he  was  the  most  obvious,  the  most  "  regular,"  of 
the  candidates. 

It  has  been  said  that  Van  Buren  was  at  first  inclined 
to  Adams.  The  latter's  unequaled  public  experience 
and  discipline  of  intellect  doubtless  seemed,  to  Van 
Buren's  precise  and  orderly  mind,  eminent  qualifications 
for  the  first  office  in  the  land.  Adams  at  this  time,  by 
a  coincidence  not  inexplicable,  thought  highly  of  Van 
Buren.  He  entered  in  his  diary  a  remark  of  his  own, 
in  February,  1825,  that  Van  Buren  was  "  a  man  of  great 
talents  and  of  good  principles ;  but  he  had  suffered 
them  to  be  too  much  warped  by  party  spirit."  This 


92  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

from  an  Adams  may  be  taken  as  extreme  praise.  It  is 
pretty  certain  that  if  Van  Buren  had  reprehensibly 
shifted  his  position  from  Adams  to  Crawford,  we  should 
find  a  record  of  it  in  the  vast  treasure-house  of  damna 
tions  which  Adams  left.  Nor  is  there  good  reason  to 
suppose  that  Van  Buren  was  influenced  by  the  nomina 
tion  which  Crawford's  friends  in  Georgia  gave  him  in 
1824  for  the  vice-presidency.  This  showed  that  New 
York  had  already  surrendered  her  favorite  "  son  to  the 
nation  ;  "  he  was  now  definitely  to  be  counted  a  power 
in  national  politics,  where  he  was  known  as  the  "  Al 
bany  director."  Crawford's  enemies  in  Georgia,  the 
Clarkites,  ridiculed  this  nomination  with  the  coarse  and 
silly  abuse  which  active  politicians  to  this  day  are  al 
ways  ready  to  use  in  their  cynical  under-estimate  of 
popular  intelligence,  —  abuse  which  they  are  by  and  by 
pretty  sure  to  be  glad  to  forget.  Van  Buren  was  pic 
tured  as  half  man  and  half  cat,  half  fox  and  half  monkey, 
half  snake  and  half  mink.  He  was  dubbed  "Blue 
Whiskey  Van  "  and  "  Little  Van."  The  Clarkites,  being 
only  a  minority  in  the  Georgia  assembly,  delighted  to 
vote  for  him  as  their  standing  candidate  for  door 
keeper  and  the  like  humbler  positions. 

New  York  was  greatly  disturbed  through  1824  over 
the  presidency.  Its  politics  were  in  the  position  de 
scribed  by  Senator  Cobb,  one  of  Crawford's  Georgia 
supporters.  "  Could  we  hit  upon  a  few  great  principles," 
he  wrote  home  from  Washington  in  January,  1825, 
"  and  unite  their  support  with  that  of  Crawford,  we 
should  succeed  beyond  doubt."  But  the  great  princi 
ples  were  hard  to  find.  The  people  and  the  greater 
politicians  were  therefore  swayed  by  personal  prefer, 
ences,  without  strong  reason  for  either  choice ;  and  the 


ELECTION   OF  1824.  93 

lesser  politicians  were  simply  watching  to  see  how  the 
tide  ran.  Adams  was  the  most  natural  choice  of  the 
New  York  Republicans.  The  South  had  had  the  presi 
dency  for  six  terms.  His  early  secession  from  the 
Federalists ;  his  aid  in  solidifying  the  Republican  sen 
timent  at  the  North;  his  support  of  Jefferson  in  the 
patriotic  embargo  struggle  ;  his  long,  eminent,  and  fruit 
ful  services  ;  and  his  place  of  secretary  of  state,  from 
which  Madison  and  Monroe  had  in  turn  been  promoted 
to  the  presidency,  —  all  these  commended  him  to  north 
ern  Republicans  as  a  proper  candidate. 

De  Witt  Clinton  admired  and  supported  General  Jack 
son.  In  1819  the  latter  had  at  a  dinner  in  Tammany 
Hall  amazed  and  affronted  the  former's  Bucktail  ene 
mies  by  giving  as  his  toast,  u  De  Witt  Clinton,  the  en 
lightened  statesman  and  governor  of  the  great  and 
patriotic  state  of  New  York."  In  January,  1824,  Clinton 
was  the  victim  of  a  political  outrage  which  illustrated 
the  harsh  partisanship  then  ruling  in  New  York  politics, 
and  may  well  have  determined  the  choice  of  president. 
Clinton  had  retired  from  the  governor's  chair  ;  but  he 
still  held  the  honorary  and  unpaid  office  of  canal  com 
missioner,  to  which  he  brought  distinguished  honor  but 
which  brought  none  to  him,  and  whose  importance  he 
more  than  any  other  man  had  created.  The  Crawford 
men  in  the  legislature  feared  a  combination  of  the  men 
of  the  new  People's  Party  with  the  Clintonians  on  the 
presidential  question.  Clinton  seemed  at  the  time  an 
unpopular  character.  To  embarrass  the  People's  Party, 
Crawford's  enemies  suddenly,  and  just  before  the  rising 
of  the  legislature,  offered  a  resolution  removing  him 
from  the  canal  commissionership.  The  People's  Party, 
it  was  thought,  by  opposing  the  resolution,  would  incur 


94  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

popular  dislike  through  their  alliance  with  the  few  and 
unpopular  Clintonians  ;  while  by  supporting  the  resolu 
tion  they  would  forfeit  the  support  of  the  latter  upon 
which  they  relied.  In  either  case  the  Crawford  men 
would  apparently  profit  by  the  trick.  The  People's 
Party  men,  including  those  favoring  Adams  for  presi 
dent,  at  once  seized  the  wrong  horn  of  the  dilemma,  and 
voted  for  Clinton's  removal,  which  was  thus  carried  by 
an  almost  unanimous  vote.  But  the  people  themselves 
were  underrated  ;  the  outrage  promptly  restored  Clinton 
to  popular  favor.  In  spite  of  the  resistance  of  the  poli 
ticians,  he  was,  in  the  fall  of  1824,  elected  by  a  large 
majority  to  the  governor's  seat,  to  which,  or  to  any  great 
office,  it  had  been  supposed  he  could  never  return  ;  al 
though  at  the  same  time  and  upon  the  same  ticket  one 
of  those  who  had  voted  for  his  removal  was  chosen 
lieutenant-governor.  Van  Buren  was  no  party  to  this 
removal,  although  his  political  friends  at  Albany  were 
the  first  movers  in  the  scheme.  He  himself  was  far- 
sighted  enough  to  see  the  probable  effect  of  so  gross  and 
indecent  a  use  of  political  power.  Nor  was  he  so  relent 
less  a  partisan  as  to  remember  in  unfruitful  vengeance 
Clinton's  own  prescriptive  conduct,  or  to  remove  the 
latter  from  an  honorary  seat  which  belonged  to  him 
above  all  other  men.  By  this  silly  blunder  Clinton  was 
again  raised  to  deserved  power,  which  he  held  until  his 
death. 

The  popular  outburst  consequent  upon  Clinton's  re 
moval  in  January,  1824,  made  it  very  dangerous  for 
the  Bucktails  to  leave  to  the  people  in  the  fall  the  choice 
of  presidential  electors.  The  rise  of  the  People's  Party 
for  a  time  seriously  threatened  Van  Buren's  influence. 
Until  1824  the  presidential  electors  of  New  York  had 


THE  ALBANY  REGENCY.  95 

been  chosen  by  its  legislature.    The  opponents  of  Craw 
ford  and  Van  Buren,  fearing  that  the  latter's  superior 
political  skill  would  more  easily  capture  the  legislature 
in  November,  1824,  raised  at  the  legislative  elections  of 
1823  a  cry  against  the  Albany  Regency,  and  demanded 
that  presidential  electors  should  be  chosen  directly  by  the 
people.     The  Regency,  popularly  believed  to  have  been 
founded  by  Van  Buren,  consisted  of  a  few  able  follow 
ers  of  his,  residing  or  in  office  at  Albany.     They  were 
also  called  the  "  conspirators."    Chief  among  them  were 
William  L.   Marcy,  the  comptroller ;   Samuel  A.  Tal- 
cott,   the   attorney-general ;   Benjamin   F.  Butler,  then 
district  attorney  of    Albany  county ;  Edwin  Croswell, 
the  state    printer  ;    Roger    Skinner,  the   United    States 
district  judge ;  and  Benjamin  Knower,  the  state  treas 
urer.     Later  there  joined  the  Regency,  Silas  Wright, 
Azariah  C.  Flagg,  Thomas  W.  Olcott,  and  Charles  E. 
Dudley.     Its  members  were  active,  skillful,  shrewd  pol 
iticians  ;  and  they  were  much  more.     They  were  men 
of  strong  political  convictions,  holding  and  observing  a 
high  standard  for  the  public  service,  and  of  undoubted 
personal   integrity.     In  1830  John  A.  Dix  gave    as    a 
chief    reason   for    accepting   office   at   Albany  that  he 
should  there  be  "  one  of  the  Regency."     His  son,  Dr. 
Morgan  Dix,  describes  their  aggressive  honesty,  their 
refusal  "  to  tolerate  in  those  whom  they  could  control 
what  their  own  fine  sense  of  honor  did  not  approve ; " 
and  he  quotes  a  remark  made  to  him  by  Thurlow  Weed, 
their  long  and  most  formidable  enemy,  "  that  he  had 
never  known  a  body  of  men  who    possessed  so   much 
power  and  used  it  so  well."     In  his  Memoirs,  Weed 
describes  their  "  great  ability,  great  industry,  indomita 
ble  courage."      Two  at  least  of  the  original  members, 


96  MARTIN  VAN  BCREN. 

Marcy  and  Butler,  afterwards  justly  rose  to  national 
distinction.  Even  to  our  own  day,  the  Albany  Regency 
has  been  a  strong  and  generally  a  sagacious  influence  in 
its  party.  John  A.  Dix,  Horatio  Seymour,  Dean  Rich 
mond,  and  Samuel  J.  Tilden  long  directed  its  policy ; 
and  from  the  chief  seat  in  its  councils  the  late  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  Daniel  Manning,  was  chosen  in  1885. 

In  November,  1823,  the  People's  Party  elected  only  a 
minority  of  the  legislature  ;  but  many  of  the  Democrats 
were  committed  to  the  support  of  an  electoral  law,  and 
the  movement  was  clearly  popular.  A  just,  though 
possibly  an  insufficient  objection  to  the  law  was  its  pro 
posal  of  a  great  change  in  anticipation  of  a  particular 
election  whose  candidates  were  already  before  the  pub 
lic.  But  there  was  no  resort  to  frank  argument.  Its 
indirect  defeat  was  proposed  by  the  Democratic  man 
agers,  and  accomplished  with  the  cooperation  of  many 
supporters  of  Adams  and  Clay.  A  bill  was  reported 
in  the  assembly,  where  the  Regency  was  in  a  minority, 
giving  the  choice  of  the  electors  to  the  people  directly, 
but  cunningly  requiring  a  majority  instead  of  a  plu 
rality  vote  to  elect.  If  there  were  no  majority,  then  the 
choice  was  to  be  left  to  the  legislature.  The  Adams 
and  Clay  men  were  unwilling  to  let  a  plurality  elect,  lest 
in  the  uncertain  state  of  public  feeling  some  other  can 
didate  might  be  at  the  head  of  the  poll ;  and  they  were 
probably  now  quite  as  confident  as  the  Bucktails,  and 
with  more  reason,  of  their  strength  upon  joint  ballot  in 
the  legislature.  Divided  as  the  people  of  New  York 
were  between  the  four  presidential  candidates,  it  was 
well  known  that  this  device  would  really  give  them  no 
choice.  The  consideration  of  the  electoral  law  was 
postponed  in  the  senate  upon  a  pretense  of  objection  to 


ELECTION  OF  1824.  97 

the  form  of  the  bill,  and  with  insincere  protestations  of 
a  desire  to  pass  it.  The  outcome  of  all  this  was  that  in 
the  election  of  November,  1824,  the  Democrats  were 
punished  at  the  polls  both  for  the  wanton  attack  on 
Clinton  and  for  their  unprincipled  treatment  of  the 
electoral  bill.  The  Regency  got  no  more  than  a  small 
minority  in  the  legislature  ;  and  De  Witt  Clinton,  as  has 
been  said,  was  chosen  governor  by  a  great  majority. 

Crawford's  supporters  at  Washington  believed  that  in 
a  congressional  caucus  he  would  have  a  larger  vote  than 
any  other  candidate.  His  opponents,  in  the  same  belief, 
refused  to  join  in  a  caucus,  in  spite  of  the  cry  that  their 
refusal  was  a  treason  to  old  party  usage.  The  Repub 
licans  at  Albany,  probably  upon  Van  Buren's  advice,  had 
in  April,  1823,  declared  in  favor  of  a  caucus,  but  without 
effect.  Two  thirds  of  Congress  would  not  assent.  At 
last  in  February,  1824,  a  caucus  was  called,  doubtless  in 
the  hope  that  many  who  had  refused  their  assent  would, 
finding  the  caucus  inevitable,  attend  through  force  of 
party  habit.  But  of  the  261  members  of  Congress,  only 
66  attended;  and  they  were  chiefly  from  New  York, 
Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  Georgia.  In  the  caucus 
62  voted  for  Crawford  for  president  and  57  for  Albert 
Gallatin  for  vice-president.  A  cry  was  soon  raised 
against  the  latter  as  a  foreigner  ;  so  that  in  spite  of  his 
American  residence  of  forty-five  years,  and  his  invalua 
ble  services  to  the  country  and  to  the  Republican  party 
through  nearly  all  this  period,  he  felt  compelled  to  with 
draw. 

The  failure  of  the  caucus  almost  destroyed  Craw 
ford's  chances,  though  Van  Buren  steadily  kept  up 
courage.  A  few  days  later  he  wrote  a  confidential  let 
ter  complaining  of  the  subserviency  and  ingratitude  of 


98  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  non-attendants,  who  had  "  partaken  largely  of  the 
favor  of  the  party ; "  but  despondency,  he  said,  was  a 
weakness  with  which  he  was  but  little  annoyed,  and  if 
New  York  should  be  firm  and  promptly  explicit,  the 
election  would  be  substantially  settled.  But  New  York 
was  neither  firm  nor  promptly  explicit.  Its  electoral 
vote  was  in  doubt  until  the  meeting  of  the  legislature  in 
November.  The  Adams  and  Clay  forces  then  united, 
securing  31  out  of  the  36  electors,  although  one  of  the  31 
seems  finally  to  have  voted  for  Jackson.  Five  Craw 
ford  electors  were  chosen  with  the  help  of  the  Adams 
men,  who  wished  to  keep  Clay  at  the  foot  of  the  poll  of 
presidential  electors,  and  thus  prevent  his  eligibility  as 
one  of  the  highest  three  in  the  house  of  representatives. 
This  device  of  the  Adams  men  may  have  deprived  Clay 
of  the  presidency.  Thus  Van  Buren's  New  York  cam 
paign  met  defeat  even  in  the  legislature,  where  his  friends 
had  incurred  odium  rather  than  surrender  the  choice  of 
electors  to  the  people,  while  his  forces  were  being  thor 
oughly  beaten  by  the  people  at  the  polls.  In  the  elec 
toral  college  Crawford  received  only  41  votes ;  Adams 
had  84  and  Jackson  99  ;  while  Clay  with  only  37  was 
fourth  in  the  race,  and  could  not  therefore  enter  the  con 
test  in  the  house.  Georgia  cast  9  electoral  votes  for 
Van  Buren  as  vice-president. 

Van  Buren  did  not  figure  in  the  choice  of  Adams  in 
the  house  by  the  coalition  of  Adams  and  Clay  forces. 
Nor  does  his  name  appear  in  the  traditions  of  the 
maneuvering  at  Washington  in  the  winter  of  1824- 
1825,  except  in  a  vague  and  improbable  story  that  he 
wished,  by  dividing  the  New  York  delegation  in  the 
house  on  the  first  vote  by  states,  to  prevent  a  choice,  and 
then  to  throw  the  votes  of  the  Crawford  members  for 


UNITED   STATES  SENATOR.  99 

Adams,  and  thus  secure  the  glory  and  political  profit  of 
apparently  electing  him.  He  did  not  join  in  the  cry 
that  Adams's  election  over  Jackson  was  a  violation  of 
the  democratic  principle.  Nor  was  it  a  violation  of 
that  principle.  Jackson  had  but  a  minority  of  the  pop 
ular  vote.  Clay  was  in  political  principles  and  habits 
nearer  to  Adams  than  Jackson.  It  was  clearly  Clay's 
duty  to  take  his  strength  to  the  candidate  whose  admin 
istration  was  most  likely  to  be  agreeable  to  those  opin 
ions  of  his  own  which  had  made  him  a  candidate.  The 
coalition  was  perfectly  natural  and  legitimate ;  and  it 
was  wholesome  in  its  consequences.  It  established  the 
Whig  party ;  it  at  least  helped  to  establish  the  mod 
ern  Democratic  party.  That  the  acceptance  of  office 
by  Clay  would  injure  him  was  probable  enough.  Coa 
litions  have  always  been  unpopular  in  America  and 
England,  when  there  has  seemed  to  follow  a  division  of 
offices.  They  offend  the  strong  belief  in  party  govern 
ment  which  lies  deep  in  the  political  conscience  of  the 
two  countries. 

In  the  congressional  session  of  1824-1825  president- 
making  in  the  house  stood  in  the  way  of  everything  else 
of  importance.  Van  Buren,  with  increasing  experience, 
was  taking  a  greater  and  greater  part  in  congressional 
work.  He  joined  far  more  frequently  in  the  debates. 
Again  he  spoke  for  the  abolition  of  imprisonment  for 
debt,  his  colleague  Rufus  King  differing  from  him  on 
this  as  he  now  seemed  to  differ  from  him  on  most  dis 
puted  questions.  King  had  not  been  reflected  senator, 
having  declined  to  be  a  candidate,  because,  as  he  said, 
of  his  advancing  years.  But  doubtless  Van  Buren  was 
correct  in  telling  John  Quincy  Adams,  and  the  latter 
was  correct  in  believing,  as  his  diary  records,  that  King 
conld  not  have  been  rechosen. 


100  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

At  this  session  Van  Buren  took  definite  stand  against 
the  schemes  of  internal  improvement.  On  February 
11,  1825,  differing  even  from  Benton,  he  voted  against 
topographical  surveys  in  anticipation  of  public  works  by 
the  federal  government.  On  February  23d  he  voted 
against  an  appropriation  of  $150,000  to  extend  the 
Cumberland  road,  while  Jackson  and  Benton  both  voted 
for  it.  So,  also,  the  next  day,  when  Jackson  voted  for 
federal  subscriptions  to  help  construct  the  Delaware  and 
Chesapeake  Canal  and  the  Dismal  Swamp  Canal,  Van 
Buren  was  against  him.  Two  days  before  the  session 
closed  he  voted  against  the  bill  for  the  occupation  of 
Oregon,  Benton  and  Jackson  voting  in  the  affirmative. 
Van  Buren  was  one  of  the  senatorial  committee  to  re 
ceive  the  new  president  upon  his  inauguration.  It  was 
doubtless  with  the  easy  courtesy  which  was  genuine  with 
him  that  he  welcomed  John  Quincy  Adams  to  the  politi 
cal  battle  so  disastrous  to  the  latter. 

When  Congress  met  again,  in  December,  1825,  Van 
Buren  took  a  more  important  place  than  ever  before  in 
national  politics.  He  now  became  a  true  parliamentary 
leader  ;  for  he,  like  Clay,  had  the  really  parliamentary 
career,  which  has  rarely  been  seen  in  this  country. 
Dealing  with  amorphous  political  elements,  Van  Buren 
created  out  of  them  a  party  to  promote  his  policy,  and 
seized  upon  the  vigor  and  popular  strength  of  Jackson 
to  lead  both  party  and  policy  to  supreme  power.  While, 
before  1825,  Van  Buren  had  not  represented  in  the 
senate  a  party  distinctly  constituted,  from  1825  to  1828 
he  definitely  led  the  formation  of  the  modern  Democratic 
party.  In  this  work  he  was  clearly  chief.  From  the 
floor  of  the  senate  he  addressed  those  of  its  members 
inclined  to  his  creed,  and  the  sympathetic  elements 


PARTY  LEADERSHIP.',    " 

throughout  the  country,  and  firmly  guided  and  disci 
plined  them  after  that  fashion  which  in  very  modern  days 
is  best  familiar  to  us  in  the  parliamentary  conflicts  of 
Great  Britain.  Since  Van  Buren  wielded  this  organ 
izing  power,  there  has  been  in  America  no  equally  au 
thoritative  and  decisive  leadership  from  the  senate ; 
although  he  has  since  been  surpassed  there,  not  only  as 
an  orator,  but  in  other  kinds  of  senatorial  work.  Seward 
seemed  to  exercise  a  like  leadership  in  the  six  years  or 
more  preceding  Lincoln's  election  ;  but  he  was  far  more 
the  creature  of  the  stupendous  movement  of  the  time  than 
he  was  its  creator.  So,  in  the  two  years  before  General 
Grant's  renomination  in  1872,  Charles  Sumner  and  Carl 
Schurz,  speaking  from  the  senate,  created  a  new  party 
sentiment ;  but  the  sentiment  died  in  a  "  midsummer 
madness  "  but  for  which  our  later  political  history  might 
have  been  materially  different.  In  the  interesting  and 
fruitful  three  years  of  Van  Buren's  senatorial  opposi 
tion,  he  showed  the  same  qualities  of  firmness,  supple 
tact,  and  distinct  political  aims  which  had  given  him  his 
power  in  New  York  ;  but  all  now  upon  a  higher  plane. 

In  December,  1825,  Jackson  was  no  longer  in  the 
senate.  His  Tennessee  friends  had  placed  him  there  as 
in  a  fitting  vestibule  to  the  White  House  ;  but  it  seemed 
as  hard  then  as  it  has  been  since,  to  go  from  the  senate 
over  the  apparently  broad  and  easy  mile  to  the  west  on 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  So  Jackson  returned  to  the 
Hermitage,  to  await,  in  the  favorite  American  character 
of  Cincinnatus,  the  popular  summons  which  he  believed 
to  be  only  delayed.  Van  Buren,  now  thoroughly  ac 
quainted  with  the  general,  saw  in  him  the  strongest  titu 
lar  leader  of  the  opposition.  It  is  pretty  certain,  how 
ever,  that  Van  Buren's  preference  was  recent.  The 


MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 


"  Albany  Argus,"  a  Van  Buren  paper,  had  but  lately 
declared  that  "  Jackson  has  not  a  single  feeling  in  com 
mon  with  the  Republican  party,  and  makes  the  merit  of 
desiring  the  total  extinction  of  it ;  "  while  Jackson  pa 
pers  had  ridiculed  Crawford's 

"  Shallow  knaves  with  forms  to  mock  us, 
Straggling,  one  by  one,  to  caucus." 

It  has  been  the  tradition,  carefully  and  doubtless  sin 
cerely  begun  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  and  adopted  by 
most  writers  dealing  with  this  period,  that  Adams  met 
his  first  Congress  in  a  spirit  which  should  have  com 
manded  universal  support ;  and  that  it  was  a  factious 
opposition,  cunningly  led  by  Van  Buren,  which  thwarted 
his  patriotic  purposes.  But  this  is  an  untrue  account  of 
the  second  great  party  division  in  the  United  States. 
The  younger  Adams  succeeded  to  an  administration 
which  had  represented  no  party,  or  rather  which  had 
represented  a  party  now  become  so  dominant  as  to 
practically  include  the  whole  country.  As  president  he 
found  himself  able  to  promote  opinions  with  a  weighty 
authority  which  he  had  not  enjoyed  while  secretary  of 
state  in  an  era  of  good  feeling,  and  under  a  president 
who  was  firm,  even  if  gentle.  Nor  was  it  likely  that 
Adams,  with  his  unrivalled  experience,  his  resolute  self- 
reliance,  and  his  aggressively  patriotic  feeling,  would 
fail  to  impress  his  own  views  upon  the  public  service, 
lest  he  might  disturb  a  supposititious  unanimity  of  sen 
timent.  His  first  message  boldly  sounded  the  notes  of 
party  division.  The  second  war  with  England  was 
well  out  of  the  public  mind  ;  and  his  old  Federalist  as 
sociations,  his  belief  in  a  strong,  an  active,  a  beneficent 
federal  government,  his  traditional  dislike  of  what 
seemed  to  him  extreme  democratic  tendencies  and  con- 


REESTABLISHMENT   OF  PARTIES.  103 

stitutional  refinings  away  of  necessary  federal  power,  — 
all  these  made  him  promptly  and  ably  take  an  attitude 
very  different  from  that  of  his  predecessors.  The  com 
pliment  was  perfectly  sincere  which,  in  his  inaugural 
address,  he  had  paid  the  Republican  and  Federalist 
parties,  saying  of  them  that  both  had  "  contributed 
splendid  talents,  spotless  integrity,  ardent  patriotism, 
and  disinterested  sacrifices  to  the  formation  and  admin 
istration  "  of  the  government.  But  it  was  idle  for  him 
to  suppose  that  the  successors  of  these  parties,  although 
from  both  had  come  his  own  supporters,  and  although,  as 
in  his  offer  of  the  treasury  to  Crawford,  he  showed  his 
desire,  even  in  the  chief  offices,  to  ignore  political  differ 
ences,  would  remain  united  under  him,  if  he  espoused 
causes  upon  which  they  widely  differed.  After  recapit 
ulating  the  tenets  of  American  political  faith,  and  show 
ing  that  most  discordant  elements  of  public  opinion 
were  now  blended  into  harmony,  he  was  again  perfectly 
sincere  in  saying  that  only  an  effort  of  magnanimity 
needed  to  be  made,  that  individuals  should  discard 
every  remnant  of  rancor  against  each  other.  This  ad 
vice  he  was  himself  unable  to  follow ;  and  so  were  other 
men.  In  his  inaugural  he  distinctly  adopted  as  his  own 
the  policy  of  internal  improvements  by  the  federal  gov 
ernment,  although  he  knew  how  wide  and  determined 
had  been  the  opposition  to  it.  His  own  late  chief, 
Monroe,  had  pronounced  the  policy  unconstitutional. 
But  he  now  told  the  people  that  the  magnificence  and 
splendor  of  the  public  works,  the  roads  and  aqueducts, 
of  Rome,  were  among  the  imperishable  splendors  of  the 
ancient  republic.  He  asked  to  what  single  individual 
our  first  national  road  had  proved  an  injury.  Of  the 
constitutional  doubts  which  were  raised,  he  said,  with  a 


104  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

touch  of  the  contempt  of  a  practical  administrator : 
"  Every  speculative  scruple  will  be  solved  by  a  practical 
blessing."  To  the  self-consecrated  guardians  of  the 
Constitution  this  was  as  corrupt  as  offers  of  largesses 
to  plebeians  at  Rome.  In  his  first  message  he  recom 
mended  again  the  policy  of  internal  improvements,  and 
proposed  the  establishment  of  a  national  university. 
Although  he  admitted  the  Constitution  to  be  "  a  charter 
of  limited  powers,"  he  still  intimated  his  opinion  that 
its  powers  might  u  be  effectually  brought  into  action  by 
laws  promoting  the  improvement  of  agriculture,  com 
merce,  and  manufactures,  the  cultivation  and  encourage 
ment  of  the  mechanic  and  of  the  elegant  arts,  the  ad 
vancement  of  literature,  and  the  progress  of  the  sciences, 
ornamental  and  profound ; "  and  that  to  refrain  from 
exercising  these  powers  for  the  benefit  of  the  people 
themselves,  would  be  to  hide  the  talent  in  the  earth, 
and  a  "  treachery  to  the  most  sacred  of  trusts."  Fur 
ther,  he  now  broached  the  novel  project  of  the  congress 
at  Panama,  —  a  project  surely  doubtful  enough  to  per 
mit  conscientious  opposition. 

All  this  was  widely  different  from  the  contented  mes 
sages  of  President  Monroe.  There  was  in  these  new 
utterances  a  clear  political  diversion,  marked  not  less  by 
the  brilliant  and  restless  genius  of  Henry  Clay,  now  the 
secretary  of  state,  than  by  the  president's  consciousness 
of  his  own  strong  and  disciplined  ability.  Here  was  a 
new  policy  formally  presented  by  a  new  administration  ; 
and  a  formal  and  organized  resistance  was  as  sure  to  fol 
low  as  effect  to  follow  cause.  Van  Buren  was  soon  at 
the  head  of  this  inevitable  opposition.  It  is  difficult,  at 
least  in  the  records  of  Congress,  to  find  any  evidence  jus 
tifying  the  long  tradition  that  the  opposition  was  factious 


THE  PANAMA  MISSION.  105 

or  unworthy.  It  was  doubtless  a  warfare,  with  its  sur 
prises,  its  skirmishes,  and  its  pitched  battles.  Mistakes 
of  the  adversary  were  promptly  used.  Debates  were 
not  had  simply  to  promote  the  formal  business  before 
the  house,  but  rather  to  reach  the  listening  voters.  But 
all  this  belongs  to  parliamentary  warfare.  Nor  is  it  in 
consistent  with  most  exalted  aims  and  the  most  admi 
rable  performance  of  public  business  in  a  free  country. 
The  greatest  living  master  in  the  work  of  political  re 
form  has  described  himself  as  an  "  old  parliamentary 
hand."  Nor  in  the  motions,  the  resolutions,  the  debates, 
led  by  Van  Buren  during  his  three  years  of  opposition, 
can  one  find  any  device  which  Palmerston  or  Derby  or 
Gladstone  in  one  forum,  and  Seward  and  even  Adams 
himself  in  his  last  and  best  years  in  another,  have  not 
used  with  little  punishment  from  disinterested  and  en 
during  criticism. 

Immediately  after  Adams's  inauguration  Van  Buren 
voted  for  Clay's  confirmation  as  secretary  of  state,  while 
Jackson  and  fourteen  other  senators,  including  Hayne, 
voted  to  reject  him,  upon  the  unfounded  story  of  Clay's 
sale  of  the  presidency  to  Adams  for  the  office  to  which 
he  was  now  nominated.  Van  Buren's  language  and 
demeanor  towards  the  new  administration  were  uni 
formly  becoming.  He  charged  political  but  not  per 
sonal  wrong-doing;  he  made  no  insinuation  of  base 
motives  ;  and  his  opposition  throughout  was  the  more 
forcible  for  its  very  decorum. 

The  first  great  battle  between  the  rapidly  dividing 
forces  was  over  the  Panama  mission,  a  creation  of 
Clay's  exuberant  imagination.  The  president  nomi 
nated  to  the  senate  two  envoys  to  an  American  congress 
called  by  the  new  South  American  republics  of  Colum- 


106  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

bia,  Mexico,  and  Central  America,  and  in  which  it  was 
proposed  that  Peru  and  Chile  also  should  participate. 
The  congress  was  to  be  held  at  Panama,  which,  in  the 
extravagant  rhetoric  of  some  of  the  Republicans  of  the 
South,  would,  if  the  world  had  to  elect  a  capital,  be 
pointed  out  for  that  august  destiny,  placed  as  it  was  "  in 
the  centre  of  the  globe."  Spain  had  not  yet  acknowl 
edged  the  independence  of  her  revolted  colonies  ;  and  it 
was  clear  that  the  discussions  of  the  congress  must  be 
largely  concerned  with  a  mutual  protection  of  American 
nations  which  implied  an  attitude  hostile  to  Spain. 
Adams,  in  his  message  nominating  the  envoys,  declared 
that  they  were  not  to  take  part  in  deliberations  of  belli 
gerent  character,  or  to  contract  alliances  or  to  engage  in 
any  project  importing  hostility  to  any  other  nation.  But 
referring  to  the  Monroe  doctrine,  Adams  said  that  the 
mission  looked  to  an  agreement  between  the  nations  rep 
resented,  that  each  would  guard  by  its  own  means  against 
the  establishment  of  any  future  European  colony  within 
its  borders  ;  and  it  looked  also  to  an  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  United  States  to  promote  religious  liberty  among 
those  intolerant  republics.  The  decisive  inducement,  he 
added,  to  join  in  the  congress  was  to  lay  the  foundation 
of  future  intercourse  with  those  states  "  in  the  broadest 
principles  of  reciprocity  and  the  most  cordial  feelings  of 
fraternal  friendship." 

This  was  vague  enough.  But  when  the  diplomatic 
papers  were  exhibited,  it  was  plain  that  the  southern  re 
publics  proposed  a  congress  looking  to  a  close  defensive 
alliance,  a  sort  of  confederacy  or  Amphictyonic  council 
as  Benton  described  it ;  and  that  it  was  highly  improb 
able  that  the  representatives  from  one  country  could 
responsibly  participate  in  the  congress  without  most  seri- 


THE  PANAMA  MISSION.  107 

ous  danger  of  incurring  obligations,  or  falling  into  pre 
cisely  the  embarrassments  which  the  well  settled  policy 
of  the  United  States  had  avoided.  It  was  perfectly 
agreeable  to  Adams,  resolute  and  aggressive  American 
that  he  was,  that  his  country  should  look  indulgently 
upon  the  smaller  American  powers,  should  stand  at  their 
head,  should  counsel  them  in  their  difficulties  with  Euro 
pean  nations,  and  jealously  take  their  side  in  those  diffi 
culties.  To  Clay's  eager  and  enthusiastic  mind  there 
was  splendid  allurement  in  the  picture  of  a  great  leader 
ship  of  America  by  the  United  States,  an  American  sys 
tem  of  nations,  breathing  the  air  of  republicanism, 
asserting  a  young  and  haughty  independence  of  monar 
chical  Europe,  and  ready  for  opposition  to  its  schemes. 
In  all  this  there  has  been  fascination  to  many  American 
minds,  which  even  in  our  own  day  we  have  seen  in 
fluence  American  diplomacy.  But  it  was  a  step  into 
the  entangling  alliances  against  which  American  public 
opinion  had  from  Washington's  day  been  set.  "When 
Adams  asked  an  appropriation  for  the  expenses  of  the 
mission,  he  told  the  house  of  representatives  that  he  was 
hardly  sanguine  enough  to  promise  "  all  or  even  any  of 
the  transcendent  benefits  to  the  human  race  which 
warmed  the  conceptions  of  its  first  proposer,"  but  that  it 
looked  "  to  the  melioration  of  the  condition  of  man  ; " 
that  it  was  congenial  with  the  spirit  which  prompted 
our  own  declaration  of  independence,  which  dictated 
our  first  treaty  with  Prussia,  and  "which  filled  the 
hearts  and  fired  the  souls  of  the  immortal  founders  of 
our  revolution." 

Such  fanciful  speculation  the  Republicans,  led  by  Van 
Buren,  opposed  with  strong  and  heated  protests,  in  tone 
not  unlike  the  Liberal  protests  of  1878  in  England 


108  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

against  Disraeli's  Jingo  policy.  In  the  secret  session  of 
the  senate  Van  Buren  proposed  resolutions  against  the 
constitutionality  of  the  mission,  reciting  that  it  was  a 
departure  from  our  wise  and  settled  policy  ;  that,  for  the 
conference  and  discussion  contemplated,  our  envoys  al 
ready  accredited  to  the  new  republics  were  competent, 
without  becoming  involved  as  members  of  the  congress. 
These  resolutions,  so  the  president  at  once  wrote  in  his 
opulent  and  invaluable  diary,  "  are  the  fruit  of  the  in 
genuity  of  Martin  Van  Buren  and  bear  the  impress  of 
his  character."  The  mission  was,  the  opposition  thus 
insisted,  unconstitutional ;  a  step  enlarging  the  sphere 
of  the  federal  government ;  a  meddlesome  and  danger 
ous  interference  with  foreign  nations ;  and  if  it  lay  in 
the  course  of  a  strong  and  splendid  policy,  it  was  still 
part  of  a  policy  full  of  warlike  possibilities  almost  sure 
to  drag  us  into  old-world  quarrels.  Clay's  "  American 
system,"  Hayne  said  in  the  senatorial  debate,  meant 
restriction  and  monopoly  when  applied  to  our  domestic 
policy,  and  "entangling  alliances  "  when  applied  to  our 
foreign  policy. 

Van  Buren's  own  speech  was  very  able.  He  did  not 
touch  upon  the  liberality  of  the  Spanish  Americans 
towards  races  other  than  the  Caucasian,  which  peered 
out  of  Hayne's  speech  as  one  of  the  southern  objections. 
After  using  the  wise  and  seemingly  pertinent  language 
of  Washington  against  such  foreign  involvements,  Van 
Buren  skillfully  referred  to  the  very  Prussian  treaty 
which  the  president  had  cited  in  his  message  to  the 
house.  The  elder  Adams,  the  senate  was  reminded, 
had  departed  from  the  rule  commended  by  his  great 
predecessor.  He  had  told  his  first  Congress  that  we 
were  indeed  to  keep  ourselves  distinct  and  separate 


THE  PANAMA    MISSION.  109 

from  the  political  system  of  Europe  "  if  we  can,"  but 
that  we  needed  early  and  continual  information  of  po 
litical  projects  in  contemplation ;  that  however  we  might 
consider  ourselves,  others  would  consider  us  a  weight  in 
the  balance  of  power  in  Europe,  which  never  could  be 
forgotten  or  neglected ;  and  that  it  was  natural  for  us, 
studying  to  be  neutral,  to  consult  with  other  nations 
engaged  in  the  same  study.  The  younger  Adams  had 
been,  Van  Buren  pointed  out,  appointed  upon  the  Berlin 
mission  to  carry  out  these  heretical  suggestions  of  his 
father.  The  Republicans  of  that  day  had  vigorously 
opposed  the  mission  ;•  and  for  their  opposition  were  de 
nounced  as  a  faction,  and  lampooned  and  vilified  "  by 
all  the  presses  supporting  and  supported  by  the  govern 
ment,  and  a  host  of  malicious  parasites  generaled  by  its 
patronage."  But,  covered  with  Washington's  mantle, 
the  Republicans  of  '98  had  sought  to  strangle  at  its 
birth  this  political  hydra,  this  first  attempt  since  the 
establishment  of  the  government  to  subject  our  political 
affairs  to  the  terms  and  conditions  of  political  connection 
with  a  foreign  nation.  Probably  anticipating  the  suc 
cess  of  the  administration  senators  by  a  majority  of  five, 
Van  Buren  ingeniously  reminded  the  senate  that  those 
early  Republicans  had  failed  with  a  majority  of  four 
against  them.  But  it  was  to  be  remembered,  he  con 
tinued,  that  after  a  few  more  such  Federalist  victories 
the  ruin  of  Federalism  had  been  complete.  Its  doc 
trines  had  speedily  received  popular  condemnation. 
The  new  administration  under  the  presidency  of  that 
early  minister  to  Prussia  had  returned  to  the  practices 
of  the  Federalist  party,  to  which  Van  Buren  with  cour 
teous  indirection  let  it  be  remembered  that  the  president 
had  originally  belonged.  Except  a  guaranty  to  Spain 


110  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

of  its  dominions  beyond  the  Mississippi,  which  Jefferson 
had  offered  as  part  of  the  price  of  a  cession  of  the  terri 
tory  between  that  river  and  the  Mobile,  the  administra 
tions  of  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe  had  strictly 
followed  the  admonition  of  Washington  :  "  Peace,  com 
merce,  and  honest  friendship  with  all  nations,  entangling 
alliances  with  none."  If  we  were  asked  to  form  a  con 
nection  with  European  states,  such  as  was  proposed  with 
the  southern  republics,  Van  Buren  argued,  no  American 
would  approve  it ;  and  there  was  no  sound  reason,  there 
was  nothing  but  merely  fanciful  sentiment,  to  induce  us 
to  distinguish  between  the  states  of  Europe  and  those  of 
South  America.  If  there  were  a  Holy  Alliance  in  mo 
narchical  Europe,  it  was  a  hollow  glory,  inconsistent  with 
a  sober  view  of  American  interests,  to  create  a  holy 
alliance  in  republican  America.  It  might  indeed  be 
easy  to  agree  upon  speculative  opinions  with  our  younger 
neighbors  at  the  south  ;  but  we  should  be  humiliated  in 
their  eyes,  and  difficulties  would  at  once  arise,  when 
means  of  promoting  those  opinions  were  proposed,  and 
we  were  then  to  say  we  could  talk  but  not  fight.  The 
Monroe  doctrine  was  not  to  be  withdrawn ;  but  we 
ought  to  be  left  free  to  act  upon  it  without  the  burden 
of  promises,  express  or  implied.  The  proposed  Con 
gress  was  a  specious  and  disguised  step  towards  an 
American  confederacy,  full  of  embarrassment,  full  of 
danger;  and  the  first  step  should  be  firmly  resisted. 
Such  was  the  outline  of  Van  Buren's  argument;  and 
its  wisdom  has  commanded  a  general  assent  from  that 
day. 

Dickerson  of  New  Jersey  very  well  phrased  sound 
American  sentiment  when  he  said  in  the  debate  that, 
next  to  a  passion  for  war,  he  dreaded  a  passion  for 


THE  PANAMA  MISSION.  Ill 

diplomacy.  The  majestic  declamation  of  Webster,  his 
pathetic  picture  of  a  South  America  once  oppressed 
but  now  emancipated,  his  eloquent  cry  that  if  it  were 
weak  to  feel  that  he  was  an  American  it  was  a  weakness 
from  which  he  claimed  no  exemption,  —  all  this  met  a 
good  deal  of  exuberant  response  through  the  country. 
But  it  failed,  as  in  our  history  most  such  efforts  have 
failed,  to  convince  the  practical  judgment  of  Americans, 
a  judgment  never  long  dazzled  or  inspired  by  the  pic 
ture  of  an  America  wielding  enormous  or  dominant  in 
ternational  power.  The  Panama  congress  met  in  the 
absence  of  the  American  representatives,  who  had  been 
delayed.  It  made  a  treaty  of  friendship  and  perpetual 
confederation  to  which  all  other  American  powers  might 
accede  within  a  year.  The  congress  was  to  meet  annu 
ally  in  time  of  common  war,  and  biennially  in  times  of 
peace.  But  it  never  met  again.  The  "  centre  of  the 
world "  was  too  far  away  from  its  very  neighbors. 
Even  South  American  republics  could  not  be  kept  to 
gether  by  effusions  of  republican  glory  and  international 
love. 

In  spite  of  its  victory  in  Congress,  Adams's  adminis 
tration  had  plainly  opened  with  a  serious  mistake.  The 
opposition  was  perfectly  legitimate  ;  and  although  in  the 
debate  it  was  spoken  of  as  unorganized,  it  certainly 
came  out  of  the  debate  a  pretty  definite  party.  Before 
the  debate  Adams  had  written  in  his  diary,  and  truly, 
that  it  was  the  first  subject  upon  which  a  great  effort 
had  been  made  "  to  combine  the  discordant  elements  of 
the  Crawford  and  Jackson  and  Calhoun  men  into  a 
united  opposition  against  the  administration."  Although 
some  of  the  southern  opposition  was  heated  by  a  dislike 
of  states  in  which  negroes  were  to  be  administrators, 


112  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  division  was  not  at  all  upon  a  North  and  South  line. 
With  Van  Buren  voted  Findlay  of  Pennsylvania,  Chan 
dler  and  Holmes  of  Maine,  Woodbury  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  Dickerson  of  New  Jersey,  Kane  of  Illinois,  making 
seven  northern  with  twelve  southern  senators.  Against 
Van  Buren  were  eight  senators  from  slave  states,  Barton 
of  Missouri,  Bouligny  and  Johnston  of  Louisiana,  Cham 
bers  of  Alabama,  Clayton  and  Van  Dyke  of  Delaware, 
Richard  M.  Johnson  of  Kentucky,  and  Smith  of  Mary 
land.  It  was  an  incipient  but  a  true  party  division. 

Throughout  this  session  of  1824-1825  Van  Buren  was 
very  industrious  in  the  senate,  and  nearly,  if  not  quite, 
its  most  conspicuous  member,  if  account  be  not  taken  of 
Randolph's  furious  and  blazing  talents.  Calhoun  was 
only  in  the  chair  as  vice-president ;  the  great  duel  be 
tween  him  and  Van  Buren  not  yet  begun.  Clay  was  at 
the  head  of  the  cabinet,  and  Webster  in  the  lower  house. 
Jackson  was  in  Tennessee,  watching  with  angry  confi 
dence,  and  aiding  the  rising  tide  with  the  political  dexter 
ity  in  which  he  was  by  no  means  a  novice.  Having  only 
a  minority  with  him,  and  with  Benton  frequently  against 
him,  Van  Buren  gradually  drilled  his  party  into  opposi 
tion  on  internal  improvements,  —  a  most  legitimate  and 
important  issue.  In  December,  1825,  he  threw  down 
the  gauntlet  to  the  administration,  or  rather  took  up  its 
gauntlet.  He  proposed  a  resolution  "  that  Congress  does 
not  possess  the  power  to  make  roads  and  canals  within 
the  respective  states."  At  the  same  time  he  asked  for  a 
committee  to  prepare  a  constitutional  amendment  on  the 
subject  like  his  earlier  proposal,  saying  with  a  touch  of 
very  polite  partisanship  that  though  the  president's  recent 
declaration,  that  the  power  clearly  existed  in  the  Consti 
tution,  might  diminish,  it  did  not  obviate,  the  necessity 


INTERNAL  IMPROVEMENTS.  113 

of  an  amendment.  In  March,  April,  and  May,  1826,  he 
opposed  appropriations  of  $110,000  to  continue  the 
Cumberland  road,  and  of  $50,000  for  surveys  prepara 
tory  to  roads  and  canals,  and  subscriptions  to  stock  of 
the  Louisville  and  Portland  Canal  Company  and  of  the 
Dismal  Swamp  Canal  Company.  All  these  were  dis 
tinctly  administration  measures. 

Although  the  principles  advanced  by  Van  Buren  in 
this  part  of  his  opposition  have  not  since  obtained  com 
plete  and  unanimous  affirmance,  they  have  at  least 
commanded  so  large,  honorable,  and  prolonged  support, 
that  his  attitude  can  with  little  good  sense  be  considered 
one  of  factious  difference.  Especially  wise  was  he  on 
the  question  of  government  subscriptions  to  private 
canal  companies.  Upon  one  of  these  bills  he  said,  in 
May,  1826,  that  he  did  not  believe  that  the  government 
had  the  constitutional  power  to  make  canals  or  to  grant 
money  for  them  ;  but  he  added  that,  if  he  believed  other 
wise,  the  grant  of  money  should,  he  thought,  be  made 
directly,  and  not  by  forming  a  partnership  between  the 
government  and  a  private  corporation.  In  1824  he  had 
voted  for  the  road  from  Missouri  to  New  Mexico  ;  but 
this  stood,  as  the  Pacific  railway  later  stood,  upon  a 
different  principle,  the  former  as  a  road  entirely  without 
state  limits  and  a  means  of  international  commerce,  and 
the  latter  a  road  chiefly  through  federal  territories,  and 
of  obvious  national  importance  in  the  war  between  the 
North  and  the  South. 

The  proposed  amendment  of  the  Constitution  to  pre 
vent  the  election  of  president  by  a  vote  of  states  in  the 
house  of  representatives,  upon  which  Van  Buren  had 
spoken  in  1824,  had  now  acquired  new  interest.  Van 
Buren  seized  Adams's  election  in  the  house  as  a  good 


114  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

subject  for  political  warfare  ;  and  it  was  clearly  a  legiti 
mate  topic  for  party  discussion  and  division.  Van 
Buren  would  have  been  far  more  exalted  in  his  notions 
of  political  agitation  than  the  greatest  of  political  leaders, 
had  he  not  sought  to  use  the  popular  feeling,  that  the 
American  will  had  been  subverted  by  the  decision  of 
the  house,  to  promote  his  plan  of  constitutional  reform. 
He  told  the  senate  in  May,  1826,  that  he  was  satisfied 
that  there  was  no  one  point  on  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  were  more  perfectly  united  than  upon  the 
propriety  of  taking  the  choice  of  president  from  the 
house.  But  Congress  was  not  ready  for  the  change  ; 
however  much  in  theory  was  to  be  said  against  the 
clumsy  system  which  nearly  made  Burr  president  in 
1801, l  and  which  produced  in  1825  a  choice  which 
Adams  himself  declared  that  he  would  vacate  if  the  Con 
stitution  provided  a  mode  of  doing  it. 

As  chairman  of  the  judiciary  committee,  Van  Buren 
participated  in  a  most  laborious  effort  to  enlarge  the 
federal  judiciary.  Upon  the  question  whether  the 
judges  of  the  supreme  court  should  be  relieved  from 
circuit  duty,  he  made  an  elaborate  and  very  able  speech 
upon  the  negative  side.  The  opportunity  arose  for  a 
disquisition  on  the  danger  of  centralized  government, 
and  for  a  renewal  of  the  criticisms  he  had  made  in  the 
New  York  constitutional  convention  upon  the  common 
and  absurd  picture  of  judges  as  dwellers  in  an  atmos 
phere  above  all  human  infirmity,  and  beyond  the  reach 

1  The  more  conspicuous  difficulty  in  1801  arose  from  the  voting1 
by  each  elector  for  two  candidates  without  distinguishing-  which 
he  preferred  for  president  and  which  for  vice-president.  But  the 
awkwardness  and  not  improbable  injustice  of  a  choice  by  the 
house  was  also  well  illustrated  in  February,  1801. 


UNITED   STATES   SENATOR.  115 

of  popular  impression.  Van  Buren  said,  what  all  sen 
sible  men  know,  that  in  spite  of  every  effort,  incompe 
tent  men  will  sometimes  reach  the  judicial  bench.  If 
always  sitting  among  associates  in  bane,  their  incompe 
tence  would  be  shielded,  he  said,  by  their  abler  brethren. 
But  if  regularly  compelled  to  perform  their  great  duties 
alone  and  in  the  direct  face  of  the  people,  and  not  in 
the  isolation  of  Washington,  there  was  another  con 
straint,  Van  Buren  said  very  democratically  and  with 
substantial  truth.  "  There  is  a  power  in  public  opinion 
in  this  country,"  he  declared,  "  and  I  thank  God  for  it, 
for  it  is  the  most  honest  and  best  of  all  powers,  which 
will  not  tolerate  an  incompetent  or  unworthy  man  to 
hold  in  his  weak  or  wicked  hands  the  lives  and  fortunes 
of  his  fellow-citizens."  He  added  an  expression  to 
which  he  would  afterwards  have  given  most  narrow 
interpretation.  The  supreme  court  stood,  he  said,  "  as 
the  umpire  between  the  conflicting  powers  of  the  general 
and  state  governments."  There  was  in  the  speech  very 
plain  though  courteous  intimation  of  that  jealousy  with 
which  Van  Buren's  party  examined  the  political  utter 
ances  of  the  court  from  Jefferson's  time  until,  years 
after  Van  Buren's  retirement,  the  party  found  it  con 
venient  to  receive  from  the  court,  with  a  sanctimonious 
air  of  veneration,  the  most  odious  and  demoralizing 
of  all  its  expressions  of  political  opinion.  In  arguing 
for  a  close  and  democratic  relation  between  the  judges 
and  the  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  against  their 
dignified  and  exalted  seclusion  at  Washington  which 
was  so  agreeable  to  many  patriotic  Americans,  Van 
Buren  said,  in  a  passage  which  is  fairly  characteristic  of 
his  oratorical  manner  :  — 

"  A  sentiment  I  had  almost  said  of  idolatry  for  the 


11G  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

supreme  court  has  grown  up,  which  claims  for  its  mem 
bers  an  almost  entire  exemption  from  the  fallibilities  of 
our  nature,  and  arraigns  with  unsparing  bitterness  the 
motives  of  all  who  have  the  temerity  to  look  with  in 
quisitive  eyes  into  this  consecrated  sanctuary  of  the  law. 
So  powerful  has  this  sentiment  become,  such  strong 
hold  has  it  taken  upon  the  press  of  this  country,  that  it 
requires  not  a  little  share  of  firmness  in  a  public  man, 
however  imperious  may  be  his  duty,  to  express  senti 
ments  that  conflict  with  it.  It  is  nevertheless  correct, 
sir,  that  in  this,  as  in  almost  every  other  case,  the  truth 
is  to  be  found  in  a  just  medium  of  the  subject.  To  so 
much  of  the  high-wrought  eulogies  (which  the  fashion 
of  the  times  has  recently  produced  in  such  great  abun 
dance)  as  allows  to  the  distinguished  men  who  now  hold 
in  their  hands  that  portion  of  the  administration  of  pub 
lic  affairs,  talents  of  the  highest  order,  and  spotless  in 
tegrity,  I  cheerfully  add  the  very  humble  testimony  of 
my  unqualified  assent.  That  the  uncommon  man  who 
now  presides  over  the  court,  and  who  I  hope  may  long 
continue  to  do  so,  is,  in  all  human  probability,  the  ablest 
judge  now  sitting  upon  any  judicial  bench  in  the  world, 
I  sincerely  believe.  But  to  the  sentiment  which  claims 
for  the  judges  so  great  a  share  of  exemption  from  the 
feelings  that  govern  the  conduct  of  other  men,  and  for 
the  court  the  character  of  being  the  safest  depository  of 
political  power,  I  do  not  subscribe.  I  have  been  brought 
up  in  an  opposite  faith,  and  all  my  experience  has  con 
firmed  me  in  its  correctness.  In  my  legislation  upon 
this  subject  I  will  act  in  conformity  to  those  opinions. 
I  believe  the  judges  of  the  supreme  court  (great  and 
good  men  as  I  cheerfully  concede  them  to  be)  are  sub 
ject  to  the  same  infirmities,  influenced  by  the  same  pas- 


ABUSES  OF  PATRONAGE.  117 

sions,  and  operated  upon  by  the  same  causes,  that  good 
and  great  men  are  in  other  situations.  I  believe  they 
have  as  much  of  the  esprit  de  corps  as  other  men. 
Those  who  think  1  otherwise  form  an  erroneous  estimate 
of  human  nature  ;  and  if  they  act  upon  that  estimate, 
will,  soon  or  late,  become  sensible  of  their  delusion." 

At  this  session,  upon  the  election  by  the  senate  of 
their  temporary  president,  Van  Buren  received  the  com 
pliment  of  four  votes.  In  May,  1826,  he  participated  in 
Benton's  report  on  the  reduction  of  executive  patronage, 
a  subject  important  enough,  but  there  crudely  treated. 
The  report  strongly  exhibited  the  jealousy  of  executive 
power  which  had  long  been  characteristic  of  American 
political  thought.  By  describing  the  offices  within  the 
president's  appointment,  their  numbers  and  salaries,  and 
the  expense  of  the  civil  list,  a  striking  picture  was  drawn, 
and  in  that  way  a  striking  picture  can  always  be  drawn, 
of  the  power  of  any  great  executive.  By  imagining 
serious  abuses  of  power,  the  picture  was  darkened  with 
the  dangers  of  patronage,  as  it  could  be  darkened  to 
day.  The  country  was  urged  to  look  forward  to  the 
time  when  public  revenue  would  be  doubled,  when  the 
number  of  public  officers  would  be  quadrupled,  when 
the  president's  nomination  would  carry  any  man  through 
the  senate,  and  his  recommendation  any  measure  through 
Congress.  Names,  the  report  said,  were  nothing.  The 
first  Roman  emperor  was  styled  Emperor  of  the  Repub 
lic  ;  and  the  late  French  emperor  had  taken  a  like  title. 
The  American  president,  it  was  hinted,  might  by  his 
enormous  patronage  and  by  subsidies  to  the  press,  nomi 
nally  for  official  advertisements,  subject  us  to  a  like 

1  Gales  and  Seaton's  Debates  in  Congress  give  here  the  word 
"  act  "  instead  of  "  think,"  —  but  erroneously,  I  assume. 


118  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

danger.  But  the  usefulness  of  such  pictures  as  these 
of  Benton  and  Van  Buren  depends  upon  the  practical 
lesson  taught  by  the  artists.  If  there  were  disadvan 
tages  and  dangers  which  our  ancestors  rightly  feared,  in 
placing  the  federal  patronage  under  the  sole  control  of 
the  president,  so  there  are  disadvantages  and  dangers 
in  scattering  it  by  laws  into  various  hands,  or  in  its  sub 
jection  to  the  traditions  of  "  senatorial  courtesy." 

Six  bills  accompanied  the  report.  Two  of  them  pro 
posed  the  appointment  of  military  cadets  and  midship 
men,  one  of  each  from  every  congressional  district ;  and 
this  was  afterwards  done,  giving  a  petty  patronage  to 
national  legislators  which  public  sentiment  has  but  re 
cently  begun  to  compel  them  to  use  upon  ascertained 
merit  rather  than  in  sheer  favoritism.  A  third  bill  pro 
posed  that  military  and  naval  commissions  should  run 
u  during  good  behavior  "  and  not  "  during  the  pleasure 
of  the  president."  A  fourth  sought  with  extraordinary 
unwisdom  to  correct  the  old  but  ever  new  abuse  of 
government  advertising,  by  depriving  the  responsible 
executive  of  its  distribution  and  by  placing  it  in  the 
hands  of  congressmen,  perhaps  the  very  worst  to  hold 
it.  Another  required  senatorial  confirmation  for  post 
masters  whose  emoluments  exceeded  an  amount  to  be 
fixed.  The  remaining  bill  was  very  wise,  and  a  natural 
sequence  of  Benton's  not  untruthful  though  too  highly 
colored  picture.  The  law  of  1820,  which  fixed  at  four 
years  the  terms  of  many  subordinate  officers,  was  to  be 
modified  so  as  to  limit  the  terms  only  for  officers  who 
had  not  satisfactorily  accounted  for  public  moneys.  It 
has  been  commonly  said  that  this  act  was  a  device  of 
Crawford,  when  secretary  of  the  treasury,  more  easily  to 
use  federal  patronage  for  his  presidential  canvass.  But 


PATRONAGE.  119 

there  seems  to  be  no  sufficient  reason  to  doubt  that  Ben- 
ton's  and  Van  Buren's  committee  correctly  stated  the 
intent  of  the  authors  of  the  law  to  have  been  no  more 
than  that  the  officer  should  be  definitely  compelled  by 
the  expiration  of  his  term  to  render  his  accounts  and 
have  them  completely  audited ;  that  it  was  not  intended 
that  some  other  person  should  succeed  an  officer  not 
found  in  fault ;  and  that  the  practice  of  refusing  re-com 
missions  to  deserving  officers  was  an  unexpected  perver 
sion  of  the  law.  The  committee  simply  proposed  to 
accomplish  the  true  intent  of  the  law.  The  same  bill 
required  the  president  to  state  his  reasons  for  removals 
of  officers  when  he  nominated  their  successors.  The 
proposals  in  the  last  two  bills  were  very  creditable  to 
Benton  and  Van  Buren  and  their  coadjutors.  It  is 
greatly  to  be  lamented  that  they  were  not  safely  made 
laws  while  patronage  was  dispensed  conscientiously  and 
with  sincere  public  spirit  by  the  younger  Adams,  so  far 
as  he  could  control  it.  The  biographer  has  more  par 
ticularly  to  lament  that  during  the  twelve  years  of  Van 
Buren's  executive  influence  he  seemed  daunted  by  the 
difficulties  of  voluntarily  putting  in  practice  the  admira 
ble  rules  which  as  a  senator  he  would  have  imposed  by 
law  upon  those  in  executive  stations.  It  was  only  three 
years  after  this  report,  that  the  great  chieftain,  whom 
Benton  and  Van  Buren  helped  to  the  presidency,  dis 
credited  all  its  reasoning  by  proposing  "  a  general  ex 
tension  "  of  the  law  whose  operation  they  would  have 
thus  limited.  The  committee  also  proposed  by  constitu 
tional  amendment  to  forbid  the  appointment  to  office  of 
any  senator  or  representative  until  the  end  of  the  presi 
dential  term  in  which  he  had  held  his  seat.  This  was 
also  one  of  the  reforms  whose  necessity  seems  plain 


120  MARTIN  VAN   BUREN. 

enough  to  the  reformer,  until  in  office  he  discovers  the 
conveniences  and  perhaps  the  public  uses  of  the  practice 
he  has  wished  to  abolish. 

In  the  short  session  of  1826-1827,  little  of  any  im 
portance  was  done.  Van  Buren  refused  to  vote  with 
Benton  to  abolish  the  duty  on  salt,  a  vote  doubtless  in 
fluenced  by  the  apparent  interest  of  New  York,  which 
itself  taxed  the  production  of  salt  to  aid  the  state  in  its 
internal  improvements,  and  which  probably  could  not 
maintain  the  tax  if  foreign  salt  were  admitted  free. 
Van  Buren  did  not,  indeed,  avow,  nor  did  he  disavow 
this  reason.  He  was  content  to  point  out  that  the  great 
canals  of  New  York  were  of  national  use,  though  their 
expense  was  borne  by  his  state  alone.  He  voted  at  this 
session  for  lower  duties  on  teas,  coffees,  and  wines.  He 
did  not  join  Benton  and  others  in  their  narrow  unwill 
ingness  to  establish  a  naval  academy.  Van  Buren's 
temper  was  eminently  free  from  raw  prejudices  against 
disciplined  education.  The  death  of  one  of  the  envoys 
to  the  Panama  congress  enabled  him  again  at  this  ses 
sion  to  renew  his  opposition  by  a  vote  against  filling  the 
vacancy.  Another  attempt  was  made  to  pass  a  bank 
ruptcy  bill ;  but  again  it  failed  through  the  natural  and 
wholesome  dislike  of  increasing  the  powers  of  the  fed 
eral  judiciary,  and  the  preference  that  state  courts  and 
laws  should  perform  all  the  work  to  which  they  were 
reasonably  competent.  The  bill  did  not  even  pass  the 
senate,  until  by  Van  Buren's  opposition  it  had  been  re 
duced  to  a  bill  establishing  a  summary  and  speedy 
remedy  for  creditors  against  fraudulent  or  failing  trad 
ers,  instead  of  a  general  system  of  bankruptcy,  volun 
tary  and  involuntary,  for  all  persons.  Van  Buren's 
speech  against  the  insolvency  features  of  the  bill  was 


UNITED   STATES  SENATOR.  121 

made  on  January  23,  1827,  only  a  few  days  before  his 
successor  as  senator  was  to  be  chosen.  But  the  thought 
less  popularity  which  often  accompanies  sweeping  prop 
ositions  of  relief  to  insolvents  did  not  move  him  from 
resolute  and  successful  opposition  to  what  he  called  (and 
later  experience  has  most  abundantly  justified  him)  "  an 
injurious  extension  of  the  patronage  of  the  federal 
government,  and  an  insupportable  enlargement  of  the 
range  of  its  judicial  power."  On  February  24,  1827, 
a  few  days  after  his  reelection,  he  delivered  a  lucid  and 
elaborate  speech  on  the  long-perplexing  topic  of  the 
restrictions  upon  American  trade  with  the  British  colo 
nies,  a  subject  to  be  afterwards  closely  connected  with 
his  political  fortunes. 

The  agitation  of  the  coming  presidential  election  left 
little  of  its  turbulence  upon  the  records  of  the  long 
session  from  December,  1827,  to  May,  1828.  Van 
Buren  was  doubtless  busy  enough  out  of  the  senate 
chamber.  But  he  was  still  a  very  busy  legislator.  He 
spoke  at  least  twice  in  favor  of  the  bill  to  abolish  im 
prisonment  under  judgments  rendered  by  federal  courts 
for  debts  not  fraudulently  incurred,  the  bill  which  Rich 
ard  M.  Johnson  had  pressed  so  long  and  so  honorably ; 
and  at  last  he  saw  the  bill  pass  in  January,  1828.  He 
spoke  often  upon  the  technical  bill  to  regulate  fed 
eral  judicial  process.  Again  he  voted,  and  again  in  a 
minority  and  in  opposition  to  Benton  and  other  politi 
cal  friends,  against  bills  to  extend  the  Cumberland  road 
and  for  other  internal  improvements.  Besides  the 
usual  bills  to  appropriate  lands  for  roads  and  canals, 
and  to  subscribe  to  the  stock  of  private  canal  companies, 
a  step  further  was  now  taken  in  the  constitutional  change 
led  by  Adams  and  Clay.  Public  land  was  voted  for 


122  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

the  benefit  of  Kenyon  College,  in  the  state  of  Ohio. 
There  was  plainly  intended  to  be  no  limit  to  federal 
beneficence.  In  this  session  Van  Buren  again  rushed  to 
defend  the  salt  duty  so  dear  to  New  York. 

At  the  same  session  was  passed  the  "tariff  of  abomi 
nations,"  a  measure  so  called  from  the  oppressive  provi 
sions  loaded  on  it  by  its  enemies,  but  in  spite  of  which 
it  passed.  Van  Buren,  though  he  sat  still  during  the 
debate,  cast  for  the  bill  a  protectionist  vote,  with  Benton 
and  several  others  whose  convictions  were  against  it, 
but  who  yielded  to  the  supposed  public  sentiment  or  the 
peremptory  instructions  of  their  states,  or  who  did  not 
yet  dare  to  make  upon  the  tariff  a  presidential  issue. 
The  votes  of  the  senators  were  sectionally  thus  dis 
tributed  :  For  the  tariff,  —  New  England,  6  ;  middle 
states,  8  ;  Louisiana,  1 ;  and  the  western  states,  11 ;  in 
all  26.  Against  it,  —  New  England,  5  ;  Maryland,  2  ; 
southern  states,  13  ;  and  Tennessee,  1.  It  was  a  vic 
tory  of  neither  political  party,  but  of  the  middle  and 
western  over  the  southern  states.  Only  three  negative 
votes  were  cast  by  senators  who  had  voted  against  the 
administration  on  the  Panama  question  in  1826  ;  while 
of  the  votes  for  the  tariff,  fourteen  were  cast  by  sena 
tors  who  had  then  opposed  the  administration.  Of  the 
senators  in  favor  of  the  tariff,  six,  Van  Buren,  Benton, 
Dickerson  of  New  Jersey,  Eaton  of  Tennessee  (Jack 
son's  close  friend),  Kane  of  Illinois,  and  Rowan  of 
Kentucky,  had  in  1826  been  in  opposition,  while  ten  of 
those  voting  against  the  tariff  had  then  been  with  them.1 
The  greater  number  of  the  opposition  senators  were 
therefore  against  the  tariff,  though  very  certainly  the 

1  The  comparison  cannot  of  course  be  complete,  as  some  who 
were  senators  in  1826  were  not  senators  in  1828. 


UNITED   STATES  SENATOR.  123 

votes  of  Van  Buren,  Benton,  and  Eaton  prevented  the 
opposition  from  taking  strong  ground  or  suffering  in 
jury  on  the  tariff  in  the  election.  Van  Buren's  silence 
in  this  debate  of  1828  indicated  at  least  a  temper  now 
hesitant.  But  he  and  his  colleague,  Sanford,  according 
to  the  theory  then  popular  that  senators  were  simply 
delegated  agents  of  their  states,  were  constrained,  what 
ever  were  their  opinions,  by  a  resolution  of  the  legisla 
ture  of  New  York  passed  almost  unanimously  in  Janu 
ary,  1828.  It  stated  a  sort  of  ultima  ratio  of  protec 
tion,  commanding  the  senators  "  to  make  every  proper 
exertion  to  effect  such  a  revision  of  the  tariff  as  will 
afford  a  sufficient  protection  to  the  growers  of  wool, 
hemp,  and  flax,  and  the  manufacturers  of  iron,  woolens, 
and  every  other  article,  so  far  as  the  same  may  be  con 
nected  with  the  interest  of  manufactures,  agriculture, 
and  commerce."  The  senators  might  perhaps  have  said 
to  this  that,  if  they  were  to  protect  not  only  iron  and 
woolens  but  also  every  other  article,  they  ought  not  to 
levy  prohibitory  duties  on  some  and  not  on  other  arti 
cles  ;  that  if  they  were  equally  to  protect  manufactures, 
agriculture,  and  commerce,  they  could  do  no  better 
than  to  let  natural  laws  alone.  But  the  silly  instruction 
said  what  no  intelligent  protectionist  means ;  his  system 
disappears  with  an  equality  of  privilege  ;  that  equality 
must,  he  argues,  at  some  point  yield  to  practical  neces 
sities.  Van  Buren  took  the  resolution,  however,  in  its 
intended  meaning,  and  not  literally.  Hayne  concluded 
his  fine  struggle  against  the  bill  by  a  solemn  protest 
upon  its  passage  that  it  was  a  partial,  unjust,  and  uncon 
stitutional  measure. 

At  this  session  Van  Buren,  upon  the  consideration  of 
a  rule  giving  the  vice-president  power  to  call  to  order 


124  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

for  words  spoken  in  debate,  made  perhaps  the  most 
elaborate  of  his  purely  political  speeches.  It  was  a 
skillful  and  not  unsuccessful  effort  to  give  philosophical 
significance  to  the  coming  struggle  at  the  polls.  He 
spoke  of  "  that  collision,  which  seems  to  be  inseparable 
from  the  nature  of  man,  between  the  rights  of  the  few 
and  the  many,"  of  "those  never-ceasing  conflicts  be 
tween  the  advocates  of  the  enlargement  and  concentra 
tion  of  power  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  limitation  and 
distribution  on  the  other."  The  one  party,  he  said,  had 
"  grown  out  of  a  deep  and  settled  distrust  of  the  people 
and  of  the  states  ;  "  the  other,  out  of  "  a  jealousy  of 
power  justified  by  all  human  experience."  The  advo 
cates  of  "  a  strong  government,"  having  been  defeated 
in  much  that  they  sought  in  the  federal  convention,  had 
since,  he  said,  "  been  at  work  to  obtain  by  construction 
what  was  not  included  or  intended  to  be  included  in  the 
grant."  He  declared  the  incorporation  of  the  United 
States  Bank  to  be  the  "  great  pioneer  of  constitutional 
encroachments."  Thence  had  followed  those  famous 
usurpations,  the  alien  and  sedition  laws  of  the  older 
Adams's  administration.  Then  came  the  doctrine  that 
the  house  of  representatives  was  bound  to  make  all  ap 
propriations  necessary  to  carry  out  a  treaty  made  by 
the  president  and  senate  ;  and  then  "  the  bold  avowal 
that  it  belonged  to  the  president  alone  to  decide  upon 
the  propriety  "  of  a  foreign  mission,  and  that  it  was  for 
the  senate  only  "  to  pass  on  the  fitness  of  the  individuals 
selected  as  ministers."  He  lamented  the  single  lapse  of 
Madison,  a  one  of  the  most,  if  not  the  most,  accomplished 
statesman  that  our  country  has  produced,"  in  signing 
the  bill  to  incorporate  the  new  bank.  The  younger 
Adams,  Van  Buren  declared,  had  "  gone  far  beyond 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.  125 

the  utmost  latitude  of  construction  "  theretofore  claimed  ; 
and  he  added  a  reference,  decorous  enough  but  neither 
fair  nor  gracious,  to  Adams's  own  early  entrance  in  the 
public  service  upon  a  mission  unauthorized  by  Congress. 
It  was  now  demonstrated,  he  said,  that  the  result  of  the 
presidential  choice  of  1825  "  was  not  only  the  restora 
tion  of  the  men  of  1798,  but  of  the  principles  of  that 
day."  The  spirit  of  encroachment  had,  it  was  true, 
become  more  wary  ;  but  it  was  no  more  honest.  The 
system  had  then  been  coercion  ;  now  it  was  seduction. 
Then  unconstitutional  powers  had  been  exercised  to 
force  submission  ;  now  they  were  assumed  to  purchase 
golden  opinions  from  the  people  with  their  own  means. 
Isolated  acts  of  the  Federalists  had  not  produced  an  un 
yielding  exclusion  from  the  confidence  of  a  majority  of 
the  people,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  of  large 
masses  of  men  distinguished  for  talent  and  private 
worth.  The  great  and  glorious  struggle  had  proceeded 
for  something  deeper,  an  opposition  to  the  principle  of 
an  extension  of  the  constructive  powers  of  the  govern 
ment.  Without  harsh  denunciation,  and  by  suggestion 
rather  than  assertion,  the  administration  of  John  Quincy 
Adams  was  grouped  with  the  administration  of  his 
father.  The  earlier  administration  had  deserved  and 
met  the  retribution  of  a  Republican  victory.  The  later 
one  now  deserved  and  ought  soon  to  meet  a  like  fate. 

The  issue  was  clearly  made.  The  parties  were 
formed.  The  result  rested  with  the  people.  On  Feb 
ruary  6,  1827,  Van  Buren  had  been  reflected  senator  by 
a  large  majority  in  both  houses  of  the  New  York  legisla 
ture.  In  his  brief  letter  of  acceptance  he  said  no  more 
on  public  questions  than  that  it  should  be  his  "  constant 
and  zealous  endeavor  to  protect  the  remaining  rights  re- 


126  MARTIN  VAN   BUREN. 

served  to  the  states  by  the  Federal  Constitution,"  and  "  to 
restore  those  of  which  they  have  been  divested  by  con 
struction."  This  had  been  the  main  burden  of  his  politi 
cal  oratory  from  the  inauguration  of  Adams.  There 
are  many  references  in  books  to  doubts  of  Van  Buren's 
position  until  1827  ;  but  such  doubts  are  not  justified 
in  the  face  of  his  prompt  and  perfectly  explicit  utter 
ances  in  the  session  of  1825-1826,  and  from  that  time 
steadily  on. 

De  Witt  Clinton's  death  on  February  11,  1828,  re 
moved  from  the  politics  of  New  York  one  of  its  most 
illustrious  men,  a  statesman  of  the  first  rank,  able  and 
passionate,  and  of  the  noblest  aspirations.  The  under 
standing  reached  between  him  and  Van  Buren  in  1826, 
for  the  support  of  Jackson,  had  not  produced  a  complete 
coalition.  In  spite  of  the  union  on  Jackson,  the  Buck- 
tails  nominated  and  Van  Buren  loyally  supported  for 
governor  against  Clinton  in  1826,  William  B.  Rochester, 
a  warm  friend  and  supporter  of  Adams  and  Clay,  and 
one  of  the  members  of  the  very  Panama  mission  against 
which  so  strenuous  a  fight  had  been  made.  Clinton  was 
reflected  by  a  small  majority.  In  a  meeting  at  Wash 
ington  after  his  death,  Van  Buren  declared  the  triumph 
of  his  talents  and  patriotism  to  be  monuments  of  high 
and  enduring  fame.  He  was  glad  that,  though  in  their 
public  careers  there  had  been  "  collisions  of  opinions  and 
action  at  once  extensive,  earnest,  and  enduring,"  they 
had  still  been  "  wholly  free  from  that  most  venomous 
and  corroding  of  all  poisons,  personal  hatred."  These 
collisions  were  now  "turned  to  nothing  and  less  than 
nothing."  Speaking  of  his  respect  for  Clinton's  name 
and  gratitude  for  his  signal  services,  Van  Buren  con 
cluded  with  this  striking  tribute :  "  For  myself,  so 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.         127 

strong,  so  sincere,  and  so  engrossing  is  that  feeling,  that 
I,  who  whilst  living,  never  —  no,  never,  envied  him  any 
thing,  now  that  he  has  fallen,  am  greatly  tempted  to 
envy  him  his  grave  with  its  honors." 

With  this  session  of  1827-1828  ended  Van  Buren's 
senatorial  career  and  his  parliamentary  leadership. 
From  1821  to  1828  the  senate  was  not  indeed  at  its 
greatest  glory.  Webster  entered  it  only  in  December, 
1827.  Hayne  and  Benton  with  Van  Buren  are  to  us  its 
most  distinguished  members,  if  Randolph's  rather  inde 
scribable  and  useless  personality  may  be  excepted.  But 
to  neither  of  them  has  the  opinion  of  later  times  assigned 
a  place  in  the  first  rank  of  orators,  although  Hayne's 
tariff  speech  in  1824  deserves  to  be  set  with  the  greatest 
of  American  political  orations.  The  records  and  speeches 
of  the  senate  in  which  Van  Buren  sat  have  come  to  us 
with  fine  print  and  narrow  margins  ;  they  have  not  con 
tributed  to  the  collected  works  of  great  men.  But  the 
senate  was  then  an  able  body.  The  principles  of  Ameri 
can  politics  were  never  more  clearly  stated.  When  the 
books  are  well  dusted,  and  one  has  broken  through  the 
starched  formality  in  which  were  set  the  speakers' 
phrases,  he  finds  a  copious  fund  of  political  instruction. 
The  federal  senate  was  more  truly  a  parliamentary  body 
in  those  formative  days  than  perhaps  at  any  other 
period.  Several  at  least  of  its  members  were  in  doubt 
as  to  the  political  course  they  should  follow  ;  they  were 
in  doubt  where  they  should  find  their  party  associations. 
To  them,  debates  had  therefore  a  real  and  present  sig 
nificance.  There  were  some  votes  to  be  affected,  there 
were  converts  to  be  gained,  by  speeches  even  on  purely 
political  questions ;  there  were  some  senators  whose 
votes  were  not  inexorably  determined  for  them  by  the 


128  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

will  of  their  parties  or  their  constituents.     Much  that 
was  said  had  therefore   a  genuine  parliamentary  ring. 
The  orators  really  sought  to  convince  and  persuade  those 
who  heard  them  within  the  easy  and  almost  conversa 
tional  limits  of  the  old  senate  chamber.     There  was  little 
of  the  mere  pronouncing  of  essays  or  declamations  in 
tended  to  have  their  real  and  only  effect  elsewhere.     In 
this  art  of  true  parliamentary  speaking  rather  than  ora 
tory,  Van  Buren  was  a  master  such  as  Lord  Palmerston 
afterwards  became.    He  was  not  eloquent.    His  speeches, 
so  far  as  they  are  preserved,  interest  the  student  of  po 
litical  history  and  not  of  literature.     They  are  sensible, 
clear,  practical  arguments  made  in  rather  finished  sen 
tences.    One  does  not  find  quotations  from  them  in  books 
of  school  declamation.     But  they  served  far  more  effect 
ively  the  primary  end  of  parliamentary  speaking  than 
did  the  elaborate  and  powerful  disquisitions  of  Calhoun, 
or  the  more  splendid  flood  of  Webster's  eloquence.     Van 
Buren 'a  speeches  were  intended  to  convince  some  of  the 
men   in    the    seats  about  him,  and  they  did  convince. 
They  were  meant  to  persuade,  and  they  did  persuade. 
They  were  lucid  exhibitions  of  political  principles,  gen 
erally  practical,  and  touched  sufficiently  but  not  morbidly 
with  the  theoretical  fears  so  common  to  our  earlier  poli 
tics.     Some  of  those  fears  have  since  been  shown  to  be 
groundless ;  but  out  of  many  of  them  has  come  much 
that  is  best  in  the  modern  temper  of  American  political 
institutions.     Van  Buren's  speeches  did  not  rise  beyond 
the  reach  of  popular  understanding,  although  they  never 
warmly  touched  popular  sympathy.     They  were  intend  ed 
to  formulate  and  spread   a  political  faith  in  which  he 
plainly  saw  that  there  was  the  material  of  a  party,  —  a 
faith  founded  upon  the  jealousy  of  federal  activity,  how- 


UNITED  STATES  SENATOR.        129 

ever  beneficent,  which  sought  to  avoid  state  control  or 
encourage  state  dependence.  The  prolixity  which  was 
a  grave  fault  of  his  state  papers  and  political  letters  was 
far  less  exhibited  in  his  oratorical  efforts.  His  style  was 
generally  easy  and  vigorous,  with  little  of  the  turgid 
learning  which  loaded  down  many  sensible  speeches  of 
the  time.  Now  and  then,  however,  he  resorted  to  the 
sentences  of  stilted  formality  which  sometimes  overtake 
a  good  public  speaker,  as  a  good  actor  sometimes  lapses 
into  the  stage  strut. 

In  Van  Buren's  senatorial  speeches  there  is  nothing  to 
justify  the  charge  of  "  non-committalism  "  so  much  made 
against  him.  When  he  spoke  at  all  he  spoke  explicitly ; 
and  he  plainly,  though  without  acerbity,  exhibited  his 
likes  and  dislikes.  Jackson  was  struck  with  this  when 
he  sat  in  the  senate  with  him.  "  I  had  heard  a  great 
deal  about  Mr.  Van  Buren,"  he  said,  "  especially  about 
his  non-committalism.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  1 
would  take  an  early  opportunity  to  hear  him  and  judge 
for  myself.  One  day  an  important  subject  was  under 
debate  in  the  senate.  I  noticed  that  Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  taking  notes  while  one  of  the  senators  was  speaking. 
I  judged  from  this  that  he  intended  to  reply,  and  I  de 
termined  to  be  in  my  seat  when  he  spoke.  His  turn 
came ;  and  he  rose  and  made  a  clear,  straightforward 
argument,  which,  to  my  mind,  disposed  of  the  whole 
subject.  I  turned  to  my  colleague,  Major  Eaton,  who 
sat  next  to  me.  '  Major,'  said  I,  '  is  there  anything  non 
committal  about  that?'  'No,  sir,'  said  the  major." 
Van  Buren  scrupulously  observed  the  amenities  of  de 
bate.  He  was  uniformly  courteous  towards  adversaries  ; 
and  the  calm  self-control  saved  him,  as  some  greater 
orators  were  not  saved,  from  a  descent  to  the  aspersion 


130  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

of  motives  so  common  and  so  futile  in  political  debate. 
lie  could  not,  indeed,  help  now  and  then  an  allusion  to 
the  venality  and  monarchical  tendency  of  the  Federal 
ists  and  their  successors ;  but  this  was  an  old  formula 
which  strong  haters  had  years  before  made  very  popu 
lar  in  the  Republican  phrase-book,  and  which,  aa  to  the 
venality,  meant  nobody  in  particular. 


CHAPTER  V. 

DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828. GOVERNOR. 

WHEN  in  May,  1828,  Van  Buren  left  Washington,  the 
country  universally  recognized  him  as  the  chief  organ 
izer  of  the  new  party  and  its  congressional  leader.  As 
such  he  turned  all  his  skill  and  industry  to  win  a  victory 
for  Jackson  and  Calhoun.  There  was  never  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  United  States  a  more  legitimate  presidential 
canvass  than  that  of  1828.  The  rival  candidates  dis 
tinctly  stood  for  conflicting  principles  of  federal  adminis 
tration.  On  the  one  side,  under  Van  Buren's  shrewd 
management,  with  the  theoretical  cooperation  of  Cal 
houn,  —  the  natural  bent  of  whose  mind  was  now  aided 
and  not  thwarted  by  the  exigencies  of  his  personal 
career,  —  was  the  party  inclined  to  strict  limitation  of 
federal  powers,  jealous  for  local  powers,  hostile  to  in 
ternal  improvements  by  the  federal  government,  inclined 
to  a  lower  rather  than  a  higher  tariff.  On  the  other 
side  was  the  party  strongly  national  in  temper,  with 
splendid  conceptions  of  a  powerful  and  multifariously 
useful  central  administration,  impatient  of  the  poverties 
and  meannesses  of  many  of  the  states.  The  latter  party 
was  led  by  a  president  with  ampler  training  in  public  life 
than  any  American  of  his  time,  who  sincerely  and  in 
telligently  believed  the  principles  of  his  party  ;  and  his 
party  held  those  principles  firmly,  explicitly,  and  with 
practical  unanimity.  Jefferson,  in  almost  his  last  letter, 


132  MARTIN  VAN  BUREX. 

written  in  December,  1825,  to  William  B.  Giles,  a  vener 
able  leader  of  the  Democracy,  the  "  Charles  James  Fox 
of  Congress,"  Benton's  "  statesman  of  head  and  tongue," 
recalled  indeed  Adams's  superiority  over  all  ordinary 
considerations  when  the  safety  of  his  country  had  been 
questioned ;  but  Jefferson  declared  himself  in  "  the 
deepest  affliction"  at  the  usurpations  by  which  the 
federal  branch,  through  the  decisions  of  the  federal 
court,  the  doctrines  of  the  president,  and  the  miscon 
structions  of  Congress,  was  stripping  its  "  colleagues,  the 
state  authorities,  of  the  powers  reserved  to  them."  The 
voice  from  Monticello,  feeble  with  its  eighty-three  years, 
and  secretly  uttered  though  it  was,  sounded  the  sum 
mons  to  a  new  Democratic  battle. 

Van  Buren  and  his  coadjutors,  however,  led  a  party 
as  yet  of  inclination  to  principles  rather  than  of  princi 
ples.  It  was  out  of  power.  There  was  neither  warmth 
nor  striking  exaltation  in  its  programme.  Its  philo 
sophical  and  political  wisdom  needed  the  aid  of  one  of 
those  simple  cries  for  justice  which  are  so  potent  in 
political  warfare,  and  a  leader  to  interest  and  fire  the 
popular  temper.  Both  were  at  hand.  The  late  defeat 
of  the  popular  will  by  the  Adams-Clay  coalition  was  the 
cry  ;  the  hero  of  the  military  victory  most  grateful  to 
Americans  was  the  leader.  To  this  cry  and  this  leader 
Van  Buren  skillfully  harnessed  an  intelligible,  and  at 
the  least  a  reasonable,  political  creed.  There  were  thus 
united  nearly  all  the  elements  of  political  strength. 
Not  indeed  all,  for  the  record  of  the  leader  was  weak 
upon  several  articles  of  faith.  Jackson  had  voted  in  the 
senate  for  internal  improvement  bills,  and  among  them 
bills  of  the  most  obnoxious  character,  those  authorizing 
subscriptions  to  the  stocks  of  private  corporations.  He 


DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828.  133 

had  voted  against  reductions  of  the  tariff.  But  the 
votes,  it  was  hoped,  exhibited  only  his  inexpertness  in 
applying  general  principles  to  actual  legislation,  or  a 
good-natured  willingness  to  please  his  constituents  by 
single  votes  comparatively  unimportant.  In  truth  these 
mistakes  were  really  inconsistencies  of  the  politician, 
and  no  more.  There  had  been  a  long  inclination  on 
Jackson's  part  to  the  Jeffersonian  policy.  Over  thirty 
years  before,  he  had  in  Congress  been  a  strict  construc- 
tionist  and  an  Anti-federalist.  In  1801  he  had  required 
a  candidate  desiring  his  support  to  be  "  an  admirer  of 
state  authority,  agreeable  to  the  true  literal  meaning  " 
of  the  Constitution,  and  "  banishing  the  dangerous  doc 
trine  of  implication."  If  he  were  now  to  have  undivided 
responsibility,  this  old  Democratic  trend  of  his  would, 
it  was  hoped,  be  strong  enough  under  Democratic  ad 
vice.  As  a  candidate,  the  inconsistencies  of  a  soldier 
politician  were  far  outweighed  by  his  picturesque  and 
powerful  personality.  It  is  commonly  thought  of  Jack 
son  that  he  was  a  headstrong,  passionate,  illiterate  man, 
used  and  pulled  about  by  a  few  intriguers.  Nothing 
could  be  further  from  the  truth.  He  was  himself  a  pol 
itician  of  a  high  order.  His  letters  are  full  of  shrewd, 
vigorous,  and  even  managing  suggestions  of  partisan 
manoeuvres.  Their  political  utterances  show  a  highly 
active  and  generally  sensible  though  not  disciplined  mind. 
He  had  had  long  and  important  experience  of  civil 
affairs,  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress,  in  the  federal 
senate  when  he  was  only  thirty  years  old,  in  the  consti 
tutional  convention  of  his  state,  in  its  supreme  court, 
later  again  in  the  senate ;  he  had  been  for  eight  years 
before  the  country  as  a  candidate  for  its  first  office,  and 
for  many  years  in  public  business  of  large  importance. 


134  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

There  were  two  of  the  most  distinguished  Americans, 
men  of  the  ripest  abilities  and  amplest  experience,  and 
far  removed  from  rashness,  who  from  1824  or  before 
had  steadily  preferred  Jackson  for  the  presidency. 
These  were  Edward  Livingston  of  Louisiana  and  De 
Witt  Clinton  of  New  York.  Daniel  Webster  described 
his  manners  as  "  more  presidential  than  those  of  any  of 
the  candidates."  Jackson  was,  he  wrote,  "  grave,  mild, 
and  reserved."  Unless  in  Jackson's  case  there  were 
effects  without  adequate  causes,  it  is  very  certain  that, 
with  faults  of  most  serious  character,  he  still  had  the 
ability,  the  dignity,  and  the  wisdom  of  a  ruler  of  a  high 
rank.  He  was,  as  very  few  men  are,  born  to  rule. 

After  Crawford's  defeat,  Van  Buren  is  credited  with 
a  skillful  management  of  the  alliance  of  his  forces  with 
those  of  Jackson.  There  is  not  yet  public,  if  it  exist, 
any  original  evidence  as  to  the  details  of  this  work. 
Van  Buren's  enemies  were  fond  of  describing  it  as  full 
of  cunning  and  trickery,  the  work  of  "  the  little  magi 
cian  ;  "  and  later  and  fairer  writers  have  adopted  from 
these  enemies  this  characterization.  But  all  this  seems 
entirely  without  proof.  Nor  is  the  story  probable.  The 
union  of  the  Crawford  and  Jackson  men  was  perfectly 
natural.  Crawford  was  a  physical  wreck,  out  of  public 
life.  Numerous  as  were  the  exceptions,  his  followers 
and  Jackson's  included  the  great  majority  of  the  strict 
constructionists  ;  and  but  a  minority  of  either  of  the  two 
bodies  held  the  opposite  views.  Neither  of  the  two 
men  had,  at  the  last  election,  been  defeated  by  the  other. 
That  Van  Buren  used  at  Washington  his  unrivaled 
skill  in  assuaging  animosities  and  composing  differences 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  After  the  end  of  the  session  in 
March,  1827,  together  with  Churchill  C.  Cambreleng,  a 


DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828.  135 

member  of  Congress  from  New  York  and  a  close  politi 
cal  friend  of  his,  he  made  upon  this  mission  a  tour 
through  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.  They 
visited  Crawford,  and  were  authorized  to  declare  that 
he  should  support  Jackson,  but  did  not  wish  to  aid  Cal- 
houn.  At  Raleigh  Van  Buren  told  the  citizens  that  the 
spirit  of  encroachment  had  assumed  a  new  and  far  more 
seductive  aspect,  and  could  only  be  resisted  by  the  exer 
cise  of  uncommon  virtues.  Passing  through  Washington 
on  his  way  north,  he  paid  a  polite  visit  to  Adams,  talk 
ing  with  him  placidly  about  Rufus  King,  Monroe,  and 
the  Petersburg  horse-races.  The  president,  regarding 
him  as  "  the  great  electioneering  manager  for  General 
Jackson,"  when  the  interview  was  over,  promptly  noted 
in  his  diary  that  Van  Buren  was  now  acting  the  part 
Burr  had  performed  in  1799  and  1800  ;  and  he  found 
"  much  resemblance  of  character,  manners,  and  even 
person,  between  the  two  men." 

As  early  as  1826  the  Van  Buren  Republicans  of  New 
York,  and  an  important  part  of  the  Clintonians  with  the 
great  governor  at  their  head,  had  determined  to  support 
Jackson.  Van  Buren  is  said  to  have  concealed  his  atti 
tude  until  after  his  reelection  to  the  senate  in  1827. 
But  this  is  a  complete  error,  except  as  to  his  public 
choice  of  a  candidate.  His  opposition  to  the  Adams- 
Clay  administration,  it  has  already  appeared,  had  been 
outspoken  from  1825.  The  Jackson  candidacy  was  not 
indeed  definitely  announced  in  New  York  until  1827. 
The  cry  for  "  Old  Hickory  "  then  went  up  with  a  sud 
den  unanimity  which  seemed  to  the  Adams  men  a  bit 
of  devilish  magic,  but  which  was  the  patient  prearrange- 
ment  of  a  skillful  politician  appreciating  his  responsi 
bility,  and  waiting,  as  the  greatest  of  living  politicians 


136  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

recently  told  England  a  statesman  ought  to  wait,  until 
the  time  was  really  ripe,  until  the  popular  inclination  was 
sufficiently  formed  to  justify  action  by  men  in  responsi 
ble  public  station. 

The    opposition   to   the    reelection   of   John    Quincy 
Adams  in  1828  was  sincerely  considered  by  him,  and 
has  been  often  described  by  others,  as  singularly  cause 
less,  unworthy,  and  even  monstrous.     But  in  truth  it  led 
to  one  of  the  most  necessary,  one  of  the  truest,  political 
revolutions  which  our  country  has  known.     Both  Adams 
and  Clay  were  positive  and  able  men.     They  were  reso 
lute  that  the  rather  tepid  democracy  of  Monroe  should 
be  succeeded  by  a  highly  national,  a  federally  active 
administration.     Prior  to  the  election  of  1824  Clay  had 
been  as  nearly  in  opposition  as  the  era  of  good  feeling 
permitted.     Early  in  Monroe's  administration   he  had 
attacked  the  president's  declaration  that  Congress  had 
no  right  to  construct  roads  and  canals.     His  criticism, 
Mr.   Schurz  tells  us  in  his  brilliant  and  impartial  ac 
count  of  the  time,  "  had  a  strong  flavor  of  bitterness  in 
it ;  "  it  was  in  part  made  up  of  "  oratorical  flings,"  by 
which  Clay  unnecessarily  sought  to  attack  and  humiliate 
Monroe.    Adams's  diary  states  Clay's  opposition  to  have 
been   "  violent,   systematic,"   his  course    to    have    been 
"  angry,  acrimonious."     Late  in  1819  Monroe's  friends 
had  even  consulted  over  the  wisdom  of  defeating  Clay's 
reelection  to  the  speakership  ;  and  still  later  Clay  had, 
as  Mr.  Schurz  says,  fiercely  castigated  the  administra 
tion  for  truckling  to  foreigners.     When  Clay  came  into 
power,  it  would  have  been  unreasonable  for  him  to  sup 
pose  that  there  must  not  arise  vigorous  parliamentary 
opposition  on  the  part  of  those  who  considered  them 
selves  the  true  Republican  successors  of  Monroe,  seeking 


DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828.  137 

to  stop  the  diversion  into  strange  ways  which  Clay  and 
Adams  had  now  begun.  Richard  Rush  of  Pennsylvania, 
Adams's  secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  now  the  Adams 
candidate  for  vice-president,  had,  in  one  of  his  annual 
reports,  declared  it  to  be  the  duty  of  government  "  to 
augment  the  number  and  variety  of  occupations  for  its 
inhabitants  ;  to  hold  out  to  every  degree  of  labor,  and  to 
every  modification  of  skill,  its  appropriate  object  and  in 
ducement  ;  to  organize  the  whole  labor  of  a  country  ;  to 
entice  into  the  widest  ranges  its  mechanical  and  intel 
lectual  capacities,  instead  of  suffering  them  to  slumber; 
to  call  forth,  wherever  hidden,  latent  ingenuity,  giving 
to  effort  activity  and  to  emulation  ardor  ;  to  create  em 
ployment  for  the  greater  amount  of  numbers  by  adapting 
it  to  the  diversified  faculties,  propensities,  and  situations 
of  men,  so  that  every  particle  of  ability,  every  shade  of 
genius,  may  come  into  requisition."  Nor  did  this  glow 
ing  picture  of  a  useful  and  beneficent  government  go 
far  beyond  the  utterances  of  Rush's  senior  associate  on 
the  presidential  ticket.  It  is  certain  that  it  was  highly 
agreeable  to  Clay. 

Surely  there  could  be  no  clearer  political  issue  pre 
sented,  on  the  one  side  by  Van  Buren's  speeches  in  the 
senate,  and  on  the  other  by  authoritative  and  solemn 
declarations  of  the  three  chief  persons  of  the  administra 
tion.  Whatever  the  better  side  of  the  issue  may  have 
been,  no  issue  was  ever  a  more  legitimate  subject  of  a 
political  campaign.  It  is  true  that  the  accusations  were 
unfounded,  which  were  directed  against  Adams  for 
treachery  to  the  Republican  principles  he  professed 
after,  on  adhering  to  Jefferson,  he  had  resigned  his 
seat  in  the  senate.  He  had  joined  Jefferson  on 
questions  of  foreign  policy  and  domestic  defense,  and 


138  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

had,  until  his  election  to  the  presidency,  been  chiefly 
concerned  with  diplomacy.  But  though  the  accusations 
were  false,  it  is  true  enough  that  Adams  himself  had 
made  the  issue  of  the  campaign.  Nor  was  it  creditable 
to  him  that  he  saw  in  the  opposition  something  merely 
personal  to  himself.  If  he  were  wrong  upon  the  issue, 
as  Van  Buren  and  a  majority  of  the  people  thought,  his 
long  public  service,  his  utter  integrity,  his  exalted  sense 
of  the  obligations  of  office,  ought  not  to  have  saved  him 
from  the  battle  or  from  defeat.  How  true  and  deep 
was  this  political  contest  of  1828  one  sees  in  the  fact 
that  from  it,  almost  as  much  as  from  the  triumph  of 
Jefferson,  flow  the  traditions  of  one  of  the  great  Ameri 
can  parties,  traditions  which  survived  the  corruptions  of 
slavery,  and  are  still  powerful  in  party  administration. 
If  John  Quincy  Adams  had  been  elected,  and  if,  as 
might  naturally  have  been  the  case,  there  had  followed, 
at  this  commencement  of  railway  building,  a  firm  estab 
lishment  of  the  doctrine  that  the  national  government 
could  properly  build  roads  within  the  states,  it  is  more 
than  mere  speculation  to  say  that  the  later  history  of 
the  United  States  would,  whether  for  the  better  or  the 
worse,  have  been  very  different  from  what  it  has  been. 
The  dangers  to  which  American  institutions  would  be 
exposed,  if  the  federal  government  had  become  a  great 
power  levying  taxes  upon  the  whole  country  to  be  used 
in  constructing  railways,  or,  what  was  worse,  purchasing 
stock  in  railway  corporations,  and  doing  this,  as  it  would 
inevitably  have  done,  according  to  the  amount  of  pres 
sure  here  or  there,  —  such  dangers,  it  is  easy  to  under 
stand,  seem,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  appalling  to  a 
large  class  of  political  thinkers.  To  realize  this  sense 
of  danger  dissipates  the  aspect  of  doctrinaire  extrava- 


DEMOCRATIC  VICTORY  IN  1828.  139 

gance  in  the   speeches   of  Adams's  opponents   against 
latitudinarian  construction. 

In  the  canvass  of  1828  there  was  on  both  sides  more 
wicked  and  despicable  exhibition  of  slander  than  had  been 
known  since  Jefferson  and  John  Adams  were  pitted 
against  each  other.  Jackson  was  a  military  butcher  and 
utterly  illiterate ;  the  chastity  of  his  wife  was  doubtful. 
Adams  had  corruptly  bargained  away  offices  ;  his  ac 
counts  of  public  moneys  received  by  him  needed  seri 
ous  scrutiny  ;  and,  that  the  charges  might  be  precisely 
balanced,  he  had  when  minister  at  St.  Petersburg  acted 
as  procurer  to  the  Czar  of  Russia.  These  lies  doubtless 
defeated  themselves ;  but  in  each  election  since  1828 
there  have  been  politicians  low  enough  and  silly  enough 
to  imitate  them.  To  nothing  of  this  kind  did  Van 
Buren  descend.  Nor  does  it  seem  that  even  then  he  used 
the  cry  of  a  corrupt  bargain  between  Adams  and  Clay, 
in  which  Jackson  believed  as  long  as  he  lived.  The 
coalition  of  1825,  defeating,  as  it  had,  a  candidate 
chosen  by  a  larger  number  of  voters  than  any  other,  was 
the  most  used,  and  probably  the  most  successfully  used, 
of  any  of  the  campaign  issues.  Nor  was  this  clearly 
illegitimate,  although  Adams  and  many  for  him  have 
hotly  condemned  its  immorality.  Every  political  coali 
tion  between  men  lately  in  opposition  political  and  per 
sonal,  by  which  both  get  office,  is  fairly  open  to  criticism. 
In  experience  it  has  always  been  full  of  political  danger, 
although  since  the  prejudice  of  the  times  has  worn  away, 
the  defense  of  Adams  and  Clay  is  seen  to  be  amply  suffi 
cient.  Whatever  had  been  their  mutual  dislikes  political 
or  personal,  each  of  them  was  politically  and  in  his 
practical  statesmanship  far  nearer  to  the  other  than  to 
any  other  of  the  competitors.  But  we  have  yet  to  see  a 


140  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

political  campaign  against  a  coalition  whose  members 
have  been  rewarded  with  office,  in  which  this  form  of 
attack  is  not  made  by  men  very  intelligent  and  most 
honest.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  hold  the  followers 
of  Jackson  to  a  higher  standard.  In  our  own  time  we 
have  seen  two  coalitions  whose  parties  wisely  recognized 
this  danger.  The  chief  leaders  of  the  Republican  re 
volt  in  1884  neither  sought  nor  took  office  from  the 
former  adversaries  with  whom  for  once  they  then  acted. 
The  Dissenting  Liberals  in  England  did  not  take  office 
in  the  Conservative  ministry  formed  in  1886  ;  and  the 
odium  which,  in  the  change  later  made  in  it,  followed 
Mr.  Goschen  into  its  second  place,  illustrated  very  well 
the  truth  that,  however  honorable  the  course  may  be,  it 
is  inevitably  dangerous. 

Nor  can  moral  condemnation  be  passed  upon  the  use 
in  1828  of  the  defeat  in  1824  of  the  candidate  having 
the  largest  popular  vote.  We  see  pretty  clearly  in  a 
constitutionally  governed  country  that  when  power  is 
lawfully  lodged  with  a  public  man,  he  must  act  upon 
his  own  judgment ;  and  that,  if  he  be  influenced  by 
others,  then  he  ought  to  be  influenced  by  the  wishes  and 
interests  of  those  who  supported  him,  and  not  of  those 
who  opposed  him,  even  though  far  more  numerous  than 
his  supporters.  Repeatedly  have  we  seen  a  state  legis 
lature,  which  the  arrangement  of  districts  has  caused  to 
be  elected  from  a  party  in  minority  in  the  whole  state, 
choose  a  federal  senator  who  it  was  known  would  have 
been  defeated  upon  a  popular  vote ;  and  this  without 
criticism  of  the  conduct  of  the  legislators,  but  only  of 
the  defective  district  division.  In  Connecticut  it  has 
happened  more  than  once  that,  neither  candidate  for 
governor  having  a  majority  vote,  the  legislature  has 


ELECTED   GOVERNOR.  141 

chosen  a  candidate  having  one  of  the  smaller  minori 
ties  ;  and  here  again  without  criticism  of  the  legisla 
ture's  morality.  But  still  the  general  rule  of  American 
elections  is,  that  the  candidate  shall  be  chosen  who  is 
preferred  by  more  votes  than  any  other.  To  assent  to 
a  constitutional  defeat  of  such  a  preference,  but  after 
wards  and  under  the  law  to  make  strong  appeal  to 
right  the  wrong  which  the  law  has  wrought,  seems  a 
highly  defensible  course,  and  to  deserve  little  of  the 
criticism  visited  upon  the  Jackson  canvass  of  1828.  If 
party  divisions  be  justifiable,  if  chief  public  officers  are 
to  be  chosen  for  their  views  on  great  questions  of  state, 
if  the  cold  appeals  of  political  reasoning  are  ever  rightly 
strengthened  by  appeals  to  popular  feelings,  the  cam 
paign  which  Van  Buren  and  his  associates  began  in 
1825  or  1826  was  perfectly  justifiable.  Nor  in  its  result 
can  any  one  deny,  whether  it  were  for  better  or  worse, 
that  their  success  in  the  battle  worked  a  change  in  the 
principles  of  administration,  and  not  a  mere  vulgar 
driving  from  office  of  one  body  of  men  that  another 
might  take  their  places. 

The  death  of  De  Witt  Clinton  left  Van  Buren  easily 
the  largest  figure  in  public  life,  as  he  had  for  several 
years  been  the  most  powerful  politician,  in  New  York 
state.  The  gossip  that  the  most  important  place  in 
Jackson's  cabinet  was  really  allotted  to  him  before  the 
election  of  1828  is  probably  true.  But,  whether  true  or 
not,  there  was,  apart  from  a  natural  desire  to  administer 
the  first  office  in  his  state,  obvious  advantage  to  his  polit 
ical  prestige  in  passing  successfully  through  a  popular 
election.  The  most  cynical  of  managing  politicians  rec 
ognize  the  enormous  strength  of  a  man  for  whom  the 
people  have  actually  shown  that  they  like  to  vote.  Van 


142  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Buren  may  have  counted  besides  upon  the  advantage 
which  Jackson's  personal  popularity  brought  to  those  in 
his  open  alliance,  although  Adams  was  known  still  to 
have,  as  the  election  showed  he  had,  considerable  Demo 
cratic  strength.  Van  Buren  took  therefore  the  Bucktail 
nomination  for  governor  of  New  York.  The  National 
Republicans,  as  the  Adams  men  were  called,  nominated 
Smith  Thompson,  a  judge  of  the  federal  supreme  court. 
Van  Buren  got  136,794  and  Thompson  106,444  votes. 
But  in  spite  of  so  large  a  plurality  Van  Buren  did  not 
quite  have  a  majority  of  the  popular  vote.  Solomon 
Southwick,  the  anti-Masonic  candidate,  received  33,345 
votes.  It  was  the  first  election  after  this  extraordinary 
movement.  The  abduction  of  Morgan  and  his  probable 
murder  to  prevent  his  revelation  of  Masonic  secrets  had 
occurred  in  the  fall  of  1826.  The  criminal  trials  con 
sequent  upon  it  had  caused  intense  excitement ;  and  a 
political  issue  was  easily  made,  for  many  distinguished 
men  of  both  parties  were  members  of  that  secret  order. 
How  powerful  for  a  time  may  be  a  popular  cry,  though 
based  upon  an  utterly  absurd  issue,  became  more 
obvious  still  later  when  electoral  votes  for  president 
were  cast  for  William  Wirt,  the  anti-Masonic  candidate  ; 
and  when  John  Quincy  Adams,  after  graduating  from 
the  widest  experience  in  public  affairs  of  any  American 
of  his  generation,  was,  as  he  himself  records,  willing  to 
accept,  and  when  William  H.  Seward  was  willing  to  ten 
der  him,  a  presidential  nomination  of  the  anti-Masonic 
party.  As  South  wick's  preposterous  vote  was  in  1828 
drawn  from  both  parties,  Van  Buren's  prestige,  although 
he  had  but  a  plurality  vote,  was  increased  by  his  victory 
at  the  polls.  Jackson  very  truly  said  in  February, 
1832,  that  it  was  now  "  the  general  wish  and  expecta- 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW   YORK.  143 

tion  of  the  Republican  party  throughout  the  Union" 
that  Van  Buren  should  take  the  place  next  to  the  pres 
ident  in  the  national  administration.  Jackson  was  him 
self  elected  by  a  very  great  popular  and  electoral  major 
ity.  In  New  York,  where  on  this  single  occasion  the 
electors  were  chosen  in  districts,  and  where  the  anti- 
Masonic  vote  was  cast  against  Jackson  who  held  high 
rank  in  the  Masonic  order,  Adams  secured  16  votes 
to  Jackson's  18  ;  but  to  the  latter  were  added  the  two 
electors  chosen  by  the  thirty-four  district  electors. 

Van  Buren's  career  as  governor  was  very  brief.  He 
was  inaugurated  on  January  1,  1829,  and  at  once  re 
signed  his  seat  in  the  federal  senate.  On  March  12th  of 
the  same  year  he  resigned  the  governor's  seat.  His  inau 
gural  message  is  said  by  Hammond,  .the  political  histo 
rian  of  New  York,  by  no  means  too  friendly  to  Van 
Buren,  to  have  been  "  the  best  executive  message  ever 
communicated  to  the  legislature  ;  "  and  after  nearly  sixty 
years,  it  seems,  in  the  leather-covered  tome  containing 
it,  a  remarkably  clear,  wise,  and  courageous  paper.  The 
excitement  over  internal  improvements  in  communica 
tion  was  then  at  its  height.  He  declared  that,  whatever 
difference  there  might  be  as  to  whether  such  improve 
ments  ought  to  be  undertaken  by  the  federal  govern 
ment  or  by  the  states,  none  seriously  doubted  that  it  was 
wise  to  apply  portions  of  the  means  of  New  York  to 
such  improvements.  The  investment  of  the  state  in  the 
Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal,  then  just  completed,  had, 
he  thought,  been  "crowned  with  the  most  cheering 
success."  Splendid,  too,  as  had  been  the  success  of  the 
Erie  and  Champlain  canals,  it  was  still  clear  that  all 
had  not  been  equally  benefited.  The  friends  of  the  state 
road  and  of  the  Chemung  and  Chenango  canals  had 


144  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

urged  him  to  recommend  for  them  a  legislative  support. 
But  it  was  a  time,  he  said,  for  "  the  utmost  prudence 
and  circumspection  "  upon  that  "  delicate  and  vitally 
interesting  subject." 

The  banking  question,  he  told  the  legislature,  would 
make  the  important  business  of  its  session.  It  turned 
out  besides  to  be  one  of  the  important  businesses  of  Van 
Buren's  career.  To  meet  the  attacks  upon  him  for 
having  once  been  interested  in  a  bank,  he  dexterously 
recited  that.  "  having  for  many  years  ceased  to  have  an 
interest  in  those  institutions  and  declined  any  agency  in 
their  management,"  he  was  conscious  of  his  imperfect 
information.  But  he  could  not  ignore  a  matter  of 
such  magnitude  to  their  constituents.  The  whole  bank 
agitation  at  this  time  showed  the  difficulties  and  scan 
dals  caused  by  the  absence  of  a  free  banking  system, 
and  by  the  long  accustomed  grants  of  exclusive  banking 
charters.  Of  the  forty  banks  in  the  state,  all  specially 
incorporated,  the  charters  of  thirty-one  would  expire 
within  one,  two,  three,  or  four  years.  Their  actual 
capital  was  $15,000,000  ;  their  outstanding  loans,  more 
than  $30,000,000.  Van  Buren  urged,  therefore,  the 
legislature  now  to  make  by  general  law  final  disposition 
of  the  whole  subject.  The  abolition  of  banks  had,  he 
said,  no  advocate,  and  a  dependence  solely  upon  those 
established  by  federal  authority  deserved  none  ;  but  he 
rejected  the  idea  of  a  state  bank.  "  Experience,"  he 
declared,  "  has  shown  that  banking  operations,  to  be 
successful,  and  consequently  beneficial  to  the  commu 
nity,  must  be  conducted  by  private  men  upon  their  own 
account."  He  condemned  the  practice  by  which  the 
state  accepted  a  money  bonus  for  granting  a  bank  char 
ter,  necessarily  involving  some  monopoly.  The  concern 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK.  145 

of  the  state,  he  pointed  out,  should  be  to  make  its  banks 
and  their  circulation  secure  ;  and  such  security  was  im 
paired,  not  increased,  by  encouraging  banks  in  compe 
tition  with  one  another,  and  "  stimulated  by  the  golden 
harvest  in  view,"  to  make  large  payments  for  their 
charters.  He  submitted  for  legislative  consideration 
the  idea  of  the  "  safety  fund  "  communicated  to  him  in 
an  interesting  and  intelligent  paper  by  Joshua  Forman. 
Under  this  system  all  the  banks  of  the  state,  whatever 
their  condition,  were  to  contribute  to  a  fund  to  be  ad 
ministered  under  state  supervision,  the  fund  to  be  a 
security  for  all  dishonored  bank-notes.  To  this  extent 
all  the  banks  were  to  insure  or  indorse  the  circulation 
of  each  bank,  thus  saving  the  scandal  and  loss  arising 
from  the  occasional  failure  of  banks  to  redeem  their 
notes,  and  making  every  bank  watchful  of  all  its  asso 
ciates.  In  compelling  the  banks  to  submit  to  some  gen 
eral  scheme,  the  representative  of  the  people  would 
indeed,  he  said,  enter  into  "  conflict  with  the  claims  of 
the  great  moneyed  interest  of  the  country ;  but  what 
political  exhibition  so  truly  gratifying  as  the  return  to 
his  constituents  of  the  faithful  public  servant  after  hav 
ing  turned  away  every  approach  and  put  far  from  him 
every  sinister  consideration  !  " 

Van  Buren  proposed  a  separation  of  state  from  na 
tional  elections ;  a  question  still  discussed,  and  upon 
each  side  of  which  much  is  to  be  said.  He  attacked 
the  use  of  money  in  elections,  "  the  practice  of  employ 
ing  persons  to  attend  the  polls  for  compensation,  of 
placing  large  sums  in  the  hands  of  others  to  entertain 
the  electors,"  and  other  devices  by  which  the  most  valu 
able  of  all  our  temporal  privileges  "  was  brought  into 
disrepute."  If  the  expenses  of  elections  should  increase 


146  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

as  they  had  lately  done,  the  time  would  soon  arrive 
"  when  a  man  in  middling  circumstances,  however  vir 
tuous,  will  not  be  able  to  compete  upon  anything  like 
equal  terms  with  a  wealthy  opponent."  In  long  advance 
of  a  modern  agitation  for  reform  which,  lately  begin 
ning  with  us,  will,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  not  cease  until  the 
abuses  are  removed,  he  proposed  a  law  imposing  "  severe 
and  enforcible  penalties  upon  the  advance  of  money  by 
individuals  for  any  purposes  connected  with  the  elec 
tion  except  the  single  one  of  printing." 

Turning  to  the  field. of  general  politics,  he  again  de 
clared  the  political  faith  to  whose  support  he  wished  to 
rally  his  party.  That  "  a  jealousy  of  the  exercise  of  del 
egated  political  power,  a  solicitude  to  keep  public  agents 
within  the  precise  limits  of  their  authority,  and  an 
assiduous  adherence  to  a  rigid  and  scrupulous  economy, 
were  indications  of  a  contracted  spirit  unbecoming  the 
character  of  a  statesman,"  he  pronounced  to  be  a  politi 
cal  heresy,  from  which  he  himself  had  not  been  entirely 
free,  but  which  ought  at  once  to  be  exploded.  Official 
discretion,  as  a  general  rule,  could  not  be  confided  to 
any  one  without  danger  of  abuse.  But  he  reproved  the 
parsimony  which  disagreeably  characterized  the  democ 
racy  of  the  time,  and  which  inadequately  paid  great 
public  servants  like  the  chancellor  and  judges.  In  the 
tendency  of  the  federal  government  to  encroach  upon 
the  states  lay,  he  thought,  the  danger  of  the  federal 
Constitution.  But  of  the  disposition  and  capacity  of  the 
American  people  to  resist  such  encroachments  as  our 
political  history  recorded,  there  were,  he  said,  without 
naming  either  Adams,  "  two  prominent  and  illustrious 
instances."  As  long  as  that  good  spirit  was  preserved, 
the  republic  would  be  safe  ;  and  for  that  preservation 
every  patriot  ought  to  pray. 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW   YORK.  147 

The  reputation  of  the  country  had  in  some  degree 
suffered,  he  said,  from  "  the  uncharitable  and  unrelent 
ing  scrutiny  to  which  private  as  well  as  public  char 
acter  "  had  been  subjected  in  the  late  election.  But 
this  injury  had  been  "  relieved,  if  not  removed,  by  see 
ing  how  soon  the  overflowing  waters  of  bitterness  "  had 
spent  themselves,  and  "  that  already  the  current  of 
public  feeling  had  resumed  its  accustomed  channels." 
These  excesses  were  the  price  paid  for  the  full  enjoyment 
of  the  right  of  opinion.  With  an  assertion  of  "  perfect 
deference  to  that  sacred  privilege,  and  in  the  humble 
exercise  of  that  portion  of  it  "  which  belonged  to  him, 
and  of  a  sincere  desire  not  to  offend  the  feelings  of 
those  who  differed  from  him,  he  ended  his  message  by 
congratulating  the  legislature  upon  the  election  of  Jack 
son  and  Calhoun.  This  result,  he  said  in  words  not 
altogether  insincere  or  untrue,  but  full  of  the  unfairness 
of  partisan  dispute,  infused  fresh  vigor  into  the  Ameri 
can  political  system,  refuted  the  odious  imputation  that 
republics  are  ungrateful,  dissipated  the  vain  hope  that 
our  citizens  could  be  influenced  by  aught  save  appeals 
to  their  understanding  and  love  of  country,  and  finally 
exhibited  in  u  bold  relief  the  omnipotence  of  public 
opinion,  and  the  futility  of  all  attempts  to  overawe  it  by 
the  denunciation  of  power,  or  to  reduce  it  by  the  allure 
ments  of  patronage." 

Among  the  Hoyt  letters,  afterwards  published  by 
Van  Buren's  rancorous  enemy  Mackenzie,  are  two  let 
ters  of  his  upon  his  patronage  as  governor.  It  is  not 
unfair  to  suppose  that  he  wrote  many  other  letters  like 
them,  and  they  give  a  useful  glimpse  of  the  distribution 
of  offices  at  Albany  sixty  years  ago.  These  letters  to 
Hoyt  were  of  the  most  confidential  character,  and 


148  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

showed  a  strong  but  not  uncontrolled  desire  to  please 
party  friends  and  to  meet  party  expectations.  But  in 
none  of  them  is  there  a  suggestion  of  anything  dishonor 
able.  He  asked,  "  When  will  the  Republican  party  be 
made  sensible  of  the  indispensable  necessity  of  nomi 
nating  none  but  true  arid  tried  men,  so  that  when  they  suc 
ceed  they  gain  something  ?  "  He  was  unable  to  oblige  his 
"  good  friend  Coddington  ...  in  relation  to  the  health 
appointments."  Dr.  Westervelt's  claims  were  "  decid 
edly  the  strongest ;  and  much  was  due  to  the  relations 
in  which  he  stood  to  Governor  Tompkins,  especially 
from  one  who  knew  so  well  what  the  latter  has  done 
and  suffered  for  this  state."  He  wrote  of  Marcy,  whom 
he  appointed  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court,  that  he 
"  was  so  situated  that  I  must  make  him  a  judge  or  ruin 
him."  All  this  is  doubtless  not  unlike  what  the  best  of 
public  officers  have  sometimes  said  and  thought,  though 
rarely  written ;  and,  like  most  talk  over  patronage,  it  is 
not  in  very  exalted  tone.  But  if  Van  Buren  admitted  as 
one  of  Westervelt's  claims  to  public  office  that  he  was  of  a 
Whig  family  and  a  Democrat  "  from  his  cradle,"  he 
found  among  his  other  claims  that  he  was  "  a  gentle 
man  and  a  man  of  talent,"  and  had  been  "  three  years 
in  the  hospital  and  five  years  deputy  health  officer,  until 
he  was  cruelly  removed."  Dr.  Manley  he  refused  to 
remove  from  the  health  office,  because  "  his  extraordi 
nary  capacity  is  universally  admitted ;  "  and  pointed  out 
that  the  removal  "  could  only  be  placed  on  political 
grounds,  and  as  he  was  a  zealous  Jackson  man  at  the 
last  election,  that  could  not  have  been  done  without 
danger."  "  I  should  not,"  he  said,  however,  "  have 
given  Manley  the  office  originally,  if  I  could  have  found 
a  competent  Republican  to  take  it."  William  L.  Marcy, 


GOVERNOR  OF  NEW   YORK.  149 

whom  he  made  judge,  was  already  known  as  one  of  the 
ablest  men  in  the  state,  and  his  appointment  was  admi 
rable,  though  his  salvation  from  ruin,  if  Van  Buren 
were  speaking  seriously,  was  not  a  public  end  fit  to  be 
served  by  high  judicial  appointment.  John  C.  Spencer, 
one  of  the  best  lawyers  of  New  York,  was  appointed  by 
Van  Buren  special  counsel  for  the  prosecution  of  Mor 
gan's  murderers.  Hammond  wondered  "  how  so  rigid 
a  party  man  as  Mr.  Van  Buren  was,  came  to  appoint  a 
political  opponent  to  so  important  an  office,"  but  con 
cluded  that  it  was  a  fine  specimen  of  his  peculiar  tact, 
because  Spencer,  though  a  man  of  talents  and  great  moral 
courage,  might  be  defeated  in  the  prosecution,  and  thus 
be  injured  with  the  anti-Masons  ;  while  if  he  succeeded, 
his  vigor  and  fidelity  would  draw  upon  him  Masonic 
hostility.  But  the  simpler  explanation  is  the  more  prob 
able.  Van  Buren  desired  to  adhere  in  this,  as  he  did 
in  most  of  his  appointments,  to  a  high  standard.  Upon 
this  particular  appointment  his  own  motives  might  be 
distrusted  ;  and  he  therefore  went  to  the  ranks  of  his 
adversaries  for  one  of  their  most  distinguished  and  in 
vulnerable  leaders.  Van  Buren  was  long  condemned  as 
a  "  spoils  "  politician ;  but  he  was  not  accused  of  ap 
pointing  either  incompetent  or  dishonest  men  to  office. 
In  the  great  place  of  governor  he  must  have  already 
begun  to  see  how  difficult  and  dangerous  was  this  power 
of  patronage.  It  must  be  fairly  admitted  that  he  pretty 
carefully  limited,  by  the  integrity  and  efficiency  of  the 
public  service,  the  political  use  which  he  made  of  his 
appointments,  —  a  use  made  in  varying  degrees  by 
every  American  holding  important  executive  power 
from  the  first  Adams  to  our  own  time. 

On  March  12,  1829,   Governor  Van  Buren  resigned 


350  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

his  office  with  the  hearty  and  unanimous  approval  of 
his  party  friends,  whom  he  gathered  together  on  receiv 
ing  Jackson's  invitation  to  Washington.  He  was  in 
their  hands,  he  said,  and  should  abide  by  their  decision. 
Both  houses  of  the  legislature  passed  congratulatory 
and  even  affectionate  resolutions  ;  and  his  brief  and 
brilliant  career  in  the  executive  chamber  of  the  state 
ended  happily,  as  does  any  career  which  ends  that  a 
seemingly  greater  one  may  begin. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SECRETARY   OF   STATE.  —  DEFINITE    FORMATION  OF   THE 
DEMOCRATIC    CREED. 

VAN  BUREN  was  appointed  secretary  of  state  on 
March  5,  1829 ;  but  did  not  reach  Washington  until 
the  22d,  and  did  not  act  as  secretary  until  April  4th. 
James  A.  Hamilton,  a  son  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  but 
then  an  influential  Jackson  man,  was  acting-secretary 
in  the  mean  time.  The  two  years  of  Van  Buren's  ad 
ministration  of  this  office  are  perhaps  the  most  pictur 
esque  years  of  American  political  history.  The  Eaton 
scandal ;  the  downfall  of  Calhoun's  political  power  ;  the 
magical  success  of  Van  Buren  ;  the  "  Kitchen  Cabinet ;  " 
the  odious  removals  from  office,  and  the  outcries  of  the 
removed ;  the  fiery  passion  of  Jackson  ;  the  horror  both 
real  and  affected  of  the  opposition,  —  all  these  have 
been  an  inexhaustible  quarry  to  historical  writers. 
Until  very  recently  the  larger  use  has  been  made  of  the 
material  derived  from  hostile  sources  ;  and  it  has  seemed 
easy  to  paint  pictures  of  this  really  important  time  in 
the  crudest  and  highest  colors  of  dislike.  The  Ameri 
can  democracy,  at  last  let  loose,  driven  by  Jackson  with 
a  sort  of  demoniac  energy  and  cunningly  used  by  Van 
Buren  for  his  own  selfish  and  even  Mephistophelian 
ends,  is  supposed  to  have  broken  from  every  sound  and 
conservative  principle.  Perhaps  for  no  other  period  in 
our  history  has  irresponsible  and  unverified  campaign 


152  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

literature  of  the  time  so  largely  become  authority  to 
serious  writers  ;  and  for  no  other  period  does  truth  more 
strongly  require  a  judgment  upon  well  established  results 
rather  than  upon  partisan  rumor  and  gossip.  During 
these  years  there  was  definitely  and  practically  formed, 
under  the  auspices  of  Jackson's  administration,  a  politi 
cal  creed,  a  body  of  principles  or  tendencies  in  politics 
which  have  ever  since  strongly  held  the  American  peo 
ple.  Some  of  them  have  become  established  by  a  uni 
versal  acquiescence.  During  the  same  years  there  began 
an  extension  into  federal  politics  of  the  "  spoils  system," 
which  has  been  an  evil  second  only  to  slavery,  and  from 
which  we  are  only  now  recovering.  To  Van  Buren 
more  than  to  any  man  of  his  time  must  be  awarded  the 
credit  of  forming  the  creed  of  the  Jacksonian  Democ 
racy.  And  in  the  shame  of  the  abuse,  which  has  so 
greatly  tended  to  neutralize  the  soundest  articles  of 
political  faith,  Van  Buren  must  participate  with  other 
and  inferior  men  of  his  own  time,  and  with  the  very 
greatest  of  the  men  who  followed  him.  In  this  narra 
tive  it  is  impossible  to  ignore  some  of  the  petty  and  un 
dignified  details  which  characterized  the  time,  —  details 
from  some  of  the  discredit  of  which  Van  Buren  cannot 
escape.  But  it  would  lead  to  gross  error  to  let  such 
details  obscure  the  vital  and  lasting  political  work  of  the 
highest  order  in  which  Van  Buren  was  a  central  and 
controlling  power. 

Besides  Van  Buren,  Jackson's  cabinet  included  Ing- 
ham  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  treasury,  Eaton  in  the  war 
department,  Branch  in  the  navy,  Berrien  of  Georgia 
attorney-general,  and  Barry  of  Kentucky  in  the  post- 
office,  succeeding  McLean,  who  after  a  short  service 
was  appointed  to  the  supreme  court.  Eaton,  Branch, 


RIVALRY  WITH  CALTJOUN.  153 

and  Berrien  had  been  federal  senators,  the  first  chiefly 
commended  by  Jackson's  strong  personal  liking  for  him. 
Ingham,  Branch,  and  Berrien  represented,  or  were  sup 
posed  to  represent,  the  Calhoun  influence.  Van  Buren 
in  ability  and  reputation  easily  stood  head  and  shoul 
ders  above  his  associates.  When  he  left  Albany  for 
Washington  he  was  believed  to  have  done  more  than 
any  one  else  to  secure  the  Republican  triumph  ;  and 
if  Webster's  recollections  twenty  years  later  were  cor 
rect,  he  did  more  to  prevent  "  Mr.  Adams's  reelection 
in  1828,  and  to  obtain  General  Jackson's  election,  than 
any  other  man  —  yes,  than  any  ten  other  men  —  in  the 
country."  He  was  the  first  politician  in  the  party  ; 
Calhoun  and  he  were  its  most  distinguished  statesmen. 
Already  the  succession  after  Jackson  belonged  to  one  of 
them,  the  only  doubt  being  to  which  ;  and  in  that  doubt 
was  stored  up  a  long  and  complicated  feud.  The  rivalry 
between  these  two  great  men  was  inevitable ;  it  was  not 
dishonorable  to  either.  Calhoun's  fame  was  the  older ; 
he  was  already  one  of  the  junior  candidates  for  the 
presidency,  popular  in  Pennsylvania  and  even  in  New 
England,  when  Van  Buren  was  hardly  known  out  of 
New  York.  In  1829  he  had  been  chosen  vice-president 
for  the  second  time.  He  had  shown  talents  of  a  very 
high  order.  But  he  had  now  suffered  some  years 
from  the  presidential  fever  which  distorts  the  vision, 
and  which,  when  popularity  wanes,  becomes  heavy  with 
enervating  melancholy.  He  was  an  able  doctrinaire, 
but  narrow  and  dogmatic.  The  jealous  and  ravenous 
temper  of  the  rich  slaveholders  of  South  Carolina  al 
ready  possessed  him.  He  was  a  southern  man  ;  and  all 
the  presidents  thus  far,  except  the  elder  and  younger 
Adams,  had  been  southerners.  In  1824  he  had  stood 


154  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

indifferent  between  Jackson  and  Adams,  and  in  Jack 
son's  final  triumph  had  borne  no  decisive  part.  Van 
Buren's  wider,  richer,  and  more  constructive  mind,  his 
superior  political  judgment,  his  mellower  personality, 
his  practical  skill  in  affairs,  sufficiently  explain  his  vic 
tory  over  Calhoun,  without  resort  to  the  bitter  rumors 
of  tricks  and  magical  manoauvres  spread  by  Calhoun 's 
and  Clay's  friends,  and  which,  though  without  authentic 
corroboration,  have  to  our  own  day  been  widely  ac 
cepted. 

Before  Jackson's  inauguration,  Calhoun  sought  to 
prevent  Van  Buren's  selection  for  the  state  department. 
He  told  the  general  that  Tazewell  of  Virginia  ought  to 
be  appointed.  New  York,  he  said,  would  have  been 
secured  by  Clinton  if  he  had  lived  ;  but  now  New  York 
needed  no  appointment.  Jackson  listened  coldly  to  the 
plainly  jealous  appeal ;  and  James  A.  Hamilton,  who 
was  at  the  time  on  intimate  terms  with  Jackson,  sup 
posed  it  to  be  Calhoun's  last  interview  with  Jackson 
about  the  cabinet.  Van  Buren  had  been  Jackson's 
choice  a  year  ago  ;  and  to  all  the  reasons  which  had 
then  existed  were  now  added  his  great  services  in  the 
canvass,  and  the  prestige  of  his  popular  election  as 
governor. 

The  episode  of  Mrs.  Eaton,  the  wife  of  the  new  secre 
tary  of  war,  was  absurd  enough  in  a  constitutionally 
governed  country;  but  this  silly  "  court  scandal,"  which 
might  very  well  have  enlivened  the  pages  of  a  secretary 
of  a  privy  council  or  an  ambassador  from  a  petty  Ger 
man  prince,  did  no  more  than  hasten  the  inevitable  divi 
sion.  In  the  hastening,  however,  Van  Buren  doubtless 
reaped  some  profit  in  Jackson's  greater  friendship. 
Many  respectable  people  in  Washington  believed  that 


EPISODE  OF  MRS.  EATON.  155 

unchastity  on  the  part  of  this  lady  had  induced  her  for 
mer  husband,  Timberlake,  to  cut  his  throat.  Her  sec 
ond  marriage  to  Eaton  had  just  taken  place  in  January, 
1829,  after  Jackson,  learning  of  the  scandal  but  dis 
believing  it,  had  said  to  Eaton,  "  Your  marrying  her 
will  disprove  these  charges,  and  restore  Peg's  good 
name."  The  general  treated  with  violent  contempt  the 
persons,  some  of  them  clergymen,  "  whose  morbid  appe 
tite,"  he  wrote  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ely  on  March  23,  1829, 
*'  delights  in  defamation  and  slander."  Burning  with 
anger  at  those  who  had  dared  in  the  recent  canvass  to 
malign  his  own  wife  now  dead,  he  defended  with  chival 
rous  resolution  the  lady  whom  his  own  wife  "  to  the  last 
moment  of  her  life  believed  ...  to  be  an  innocent  and 
much-injured  woman."  Even  Mrs.  Madison,  he  said, 
"  was  assailed  by  these  fiends  in  human  shape."  When 
protests  were  made  against  Eaton's  appointment  to  the 
cabinet,  Jackson  savagely  cried,  "  I  will  sink  or  swim 
with  him,  by  God  !  "  All  this  had  happened  before  Van 
Buren  reached  Washington.  There  then  followed  the 
grave  question,  whether  Mrs.  Eaton  should  be  adjudged 
guilty  by  society  and  sentenced  to  exclusion  from  its 
ceremonious  enjoyments.  The  ladies  generally  were 
determined  against  her,  even  the  ladies  of  Jackson's 
own  household.  Jackson  proposed  the  task,  impossible 
even  to  an  emperor,  of  compelling  recognition  of  this 
distressed  and  persecuted  consort  of  a  minister  of  state. 
The  unfortunate  married  men  in  the  cabinet  were  in 
embarrassment  indeed.  They  would  not  if  they  could,  so 
they  said,  —  or  at  least  they  could  not  if  they  would,  — 
induce  their  wives  to  visit  or  receive  visits  from  the  wife 
of  their  colleague.  Jackson  showed  them  very  clearly 
that  no  other  course  would  satisfy  him.  Calhoun  in  his 


156  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

matrimonial  state  was  at  the  same  disadvantage.  Even 
foreign  ministers  and  their  wives  met  the  president's 
displeasure  for  not  properly  treating  the  wife  of  the 
American  secretary  of  war. 

When  Van  Buren  entered  this  farcical  scene,  his 
widowed  condition,  and  the  fortune  of  having  sons  rather 
than  daughters,  left  him  quite  unembarrassed.  He  po 
litely  called  upon  his  associate's  wife,  as  he  called  upon  the 
others  ;  he  treated  her  with  entire  deference  of  manner. 
It  is  probable,  though  by  no  means  clear,  for  popular 
feeling  was  supposed  to  run  high  in  sacred  defense  of 
the  American  home,  that  this  was  the  more  politic  course. 
It  is  now,  however,  certain  that  by  doing  so  he  gave  to 
Jackson,  and  some  who  were  personally  very  close  to 
Jackson,  more  gratification  than  he  gave  offense  else 
where  ;  and  this  has  been  the  occasion  of  much  asper 
sion  of  Van  Buren 's  motives.  But  whether  his  course 
were  politic  or  not,  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  that  any 
other  course  would  have  been  inexcusable.  It  would 
have  been  dastardly  in  the  extreme  for  Van  Buren, 
reaching  Washington  and  finding  a  controversy  raging 
whether  or  not  the  wife  of  one  of  his  associates  were 
virtuous,  to  pronounce  her  guilty,  as  he  most  unmistak 
ably  would  have  done  had  he  refused  her  the  attention 
which  etiquette  required  him  to  pay  all  ladies  in  her 
position.  Parton  in  his  Life  of  Jackson  quotes  from  an 
anonymous  Washington  correspondent,  whose  account 
he  says  was  "  exaggerated  and  prejudiced  but  not  wholly 
incorrect,"  the  story  that  Van  Buren  induced  the  British 
and  Russian  ministers,  both  of  whom  to  their  immediate 
peace  of  mind  happened  to  be  bachelors,  to  treat  Mrs. 
Eaton  with  distinction  at  their  entertainments.  But  the 
supposition  seems  quite  gratuitous.  Neither  of  those  uu- 


RIVALRY   WITH  CALHOUN.  157 

married  diplomats  was  likely  to  do  so  absurdly  indefen 
sible  a  thing  as  to  insult  by  marked  exclusion  a  cabinet 
minister's  wife,  whom  the  president  for  any  reason,  good 
or  bad,  treated  with  especial  distinction  and  respect. 
Van  Buren's  common  sense  was  a  strong  characteristic  ; 
and  he  doubtless  looked  upon  the  whole  affair  with 
amused  contempt.  As  the  cabinet  officer  who  had  most 
to  do  with  social  ceremonies,  he  may  well  have  sought  to 
calm  the  irritation  and  establish  for  Mrs.  Eaton,  where 
he  could,  the  usual  forms  of  civility.  Like  many  other 
blessings  of  etiquette,  these  forms  permit  one  to  hold  un 
offending  neutrality  upon  the  moral  deserts  of  persons 
whom  he  meets.  It  happened  that  Calhoun's  friends 
had  tried  to  prevent  Eaton's  appointment  to  the  war 
department,  and  afterwards  sought  to  remove  him  from 
the  cabinet.  The  episode  added,  therefore,  keen  edge  to 
the  growing  hostility  of  Jackson  and  his  near  friends  to 
Calhoun,  and  thus  tended  to  strengthen  his  rival.  But 
all  this  would  have  signified  little  but  for  something 
deeper  and  broader.  The  preference  of  Van  Buren  had 
been  dictated  by  powerful  causes  long  before  Mrs.  Tim- 
berlake  became  Mrs.  Eaton.  These  causes  now  grew 
more  and  more  powerful. 

Calhoun  was  serving  his  second  term  as  vice-presi 
dent.  A  third  term  for  that  office  was  obnoxious  to  the 
rule  already  established  for  the  presidency.  Calhoun 
therefore  desired  Jackson  to  be  content  with  one  term  ; 
for  if  he  took  a  second,  Calhoun  feared,  and  with  good 
reason,  that  he  himself,  being  then  out  of  the  vice-presi 
dency,  and  so  no  longer  in  sight  on  that  conspicuous  seat 
of  preparation,  might  fall  dangerously  out  of  mind.  So 
it  was  soon  known  that  Calhoun's  friends  were  opposed 
to  a  second  term  for  Jackson.  At  a  Pennsylvania  meet- 


158  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ing  on  March  31,  1830,  the  opposition  was  openly  made. 
Before  this,  and  quite  apart  from  Jackson's  natural  hos 
tility  to  the  nullification  theory  which  had  arisen  in 
Calhoun's  state,  he  had  conceived  a  strong  dislike  to 
Calhoun  for  a  personal  reason.  With  this  Van  Buren 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do,  so  far  as  appears  from  any 
evidence  better  than  the  uncorroborated  rumors  which 
ascribe  to  Van  Bnren's  magic  every  incident  which  in 
jured  Calhoun's  standing  with  Jackson.  Years  before, 
Monroe's  cabinet  had  discussed  the  treatment  due  Jack 
son  for  his  extreme  measures  in  the  Seminole  war. 
Calhoun,  then  secretary  of  war,  had  favored  a  military 
trial  of  the  victorious  general ;  but  John  Quincy  Adams 
and  Monroe  had  defended  him,  as  did  also  Crawford,  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury.  For  a  long  while  Jackson 
had  erroneously  supposed  that  Calhoun  was  the  only 
member  of  the  cabinet  in  his  favor ;  and  Calhoun  had  not 
undeceived  him.  Some  time  before  Jackson's  election, 
Hamilton  had  visited  Crawford  to  promote  the  desired 
reconciliation  between  him  and  the  general ;  and  a  letter 
was  written  by  Governor  Forsyth  of  Georgia  to  Hamil 
ton,  quoting  Crawford's  explanation  of  the  real  transac 
tions  in  Monroe's  cabinet.  Jackson  was  ignorant  of  all 
this  until  a  dinner  given  by  him  in  honor  of  Monroe  in 
November,  1829.  Ringold,  a  personal  friend  of  Mon 
roe's,  in  a  complimentary  speech  at  seeing  Jackson  and 
Monroe  seated  together,  said  to  William  B.  Lewis  that 
Monroe  had  been  "  the  only  one  of  his  cabinet  "  friendly 
to  Jackson  in  the  Seminole  controversy ;  and  after 
dinner  the  remark,  after  being  discussed  between  Lewis 
and  Eaton  the  secretary  of  war,  was  repeated  by  the 
latter  to  Jackson,  who  said  he  must  be  mistaken.  Lewis 
then  told  Jackson  of  Forsyth's  letter,  which  greatly  ex- 


JACKSON  AND   C ALII 0 UN.  159 

cited  him,  already  disliking  Calhoun  as  he  did,  and  not 
unnaturally  susceptible  about  his  reputation  in  a  war 
which  had  been  the  subject  of  violent  and  even  savage 
attacks  upon  him  in  the  recent  canvass.  Jackson  sent 
at  once  to  New  York  for  the  letter.  But  Hamilton  was 
unwilling  to  give  it  without  Forsyth's  permission  ;  and 
when  Forsyth,  on  the  assembling  of  Congress,  was  con 
sulted,  he  preferred  that  Crawford  should  be  directly 
asked  for  the  information.  This  was  done,  and  Craw 
ford  wrote  an  account  which  in  May,  1830,  Jackson  sent 
to  Calhoun  with  a  demand  for  explanation.  Calhoun 
admitted  that  he  had,  after  hearing  of  the  seizure  of  the 
Spanish  forts  in  Florida  and  Jackson's  execution  of  the 
Englishmen  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  expressed  an 
opinion  against  him,  and  proposed  an  investigation  of  his 
conduct  by  a  court  of  inquiry.  He  further  told  Jackson, 
with  much  dignity  of  manner,  that  the  latter  was  being 
used  in  a  plot  to  effect  Calhoun's  political  extinction  and 
the  exaltation  of  his  enemies.  The  president  received 
Calhoun's  letter  on  his  way  to  church,  and  upon  his  re 
turn  from  religious  meditation  wrote  to  the  vice-presi 
dent  that  "  motives  are  to  be  inferred  from  actions  and 
judged  by  our  God ;  "  that  he  had  long  repelled  the  in 
sinuations  that  it  was  Calhoun,  and  not  Crawford,  who 
had  secretly  endeavored  to  destroy  his  reputation  ;  that 
he  had  never  expected  to  say  to  Calhoun  "  Et  tu, 
Brute!  "  and  that  there  need  be  no  further  communica 
tion  on  the  subject.  Thus  was  finally  established  the 
breach  between  Calhoun  and  Jackson,  which  this  personal 
matter  had  widened  but  had  by  no  means  begun.  In 
none  of  it  did  Van  Buren  have  any  part.  When  Jack 
son  sent  Lewis  to  him  with  Calhoun's  letter  and  asked 
his  opinion,  he  refused  to  read  it,  saying  that  an  attempt 


160  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

would  undoubtedly  be  made  to  hold  him  responsible  for 
the  rupture,  and  he  wished  to  be  able  to  say  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  it.  This  course  was  doubtless  politic, 
and  deserves  no  applause  ;  but  it  was  also  simply  right. 
On  getting  this  message  Jackson  said,  "  I  reckon  Van 
is  right ;  I  dare  say  they  will  attempt  to  throw  the  whole 
blame  on  him." 

A  few  weeks  before,  on  April  13,  1830,  the  dinner  to 
celebrate  Jefferson's  birthday  was  held  at  Washington. 
It  was  attended  by  the  president,  and  vice-president, 
the  cabinet  officers,  and  many  other  distinguished  per 
sons.  There  were  reports  at  the  time  that  it  was  in 
tended  to  use  Jefferson's  name  in  support  of  the  state- 
rights  doctrines,  and  against  internal  improvements 
and  a  protective  tariff.  This  shows  how  clearly  were 
already  recognized  some  of  the  great  causes  underly 
ing  the  political  movements  and  personal  differences 
of  the  time.  The  splendid  parliamentary  encounter 
between  Hayne  and  Webster  had  taken  place  but  two 
or  three  months  before.  In  his  speech  Hayne,  who  was 
understood,  as  Benton  tells  us,  to  give  voice  to  the  senti 
ments  of  Calhoun,  had  plainly  enough  stated  the  doc 
trine  of  nullification.  Jackson  at  the  dinner  robustly 
confronted  the  extremists  with  his  famous  toast,  "  Our 
federal  Union  :  it  must  be  preserved."  Calhoun,  already 
conscious  of  his  leadership  in  a  sectional  controversy,  fol 
lowed  with  the  sentiment,  true  indeed,  but  said  in  words 
very  sinister  at  that  time  :  "  The  Union :  next  to  our 
liberty  the  most  dear.  May  we  all  remember  that  it 
can  only  be  preserved  by  respecting  the  rights  of  the 
states,  and  distributing  equally  the  benefit  and  burden 
of  the  Union."  The  secretary  of  state  next  rose 
with  a  toast  with  little  ring  or  inspiration  in  it,  but 


CANDIDACY  FOR   THE  SUCCESSION.          161 

plainly,  though  in  conciliatory  phrase,  declaring  for  the 
Union.  He  asked  the  company  to  drink,  "  Mutual 
forbearance  and  reciprocal  concessions  :  through  their 
agency  the  Union  was  established.  The  patriotic  spirit 
from  which  they  emanated  will  forever  sustain  it." 

Van  Buren  was  now  definitely  a  candidate  for  the 
succession.  His  northern  birth  and  residence,  his  able 
leadership  in  Congress  of  the  opposition  to  the  Adams 
administration,  his  almost  supreme  political  power  in 
the  first  state  of  the  Union,  his  clear  and  systematic 
exposition  of  an  intelligible  and  timely  political  creed,  the 
support  his  friends  gave  to  Jackson's  reelection,  —  all 
these  advantages  were  now  reenforced  by  the  tendency 
to  disunion  clear  in  the  utterances  from  South  Carolina, 
by  Calhoun's  efforts  to  exclude  Van  Buren  and  Eaton 
from  the  cabinet,  by  the  hostility  to  Mrs.  Eaton  of  the 
ladies  in  the  households  of  Calhoun  and  of  his  friends 
in  the  cabinet,  and  now  by  Jackson's  discovery  that,  at  a 
critical  moment  of  his  career  ten  years  before,  Calhoun 
had  sought  his  destruction.  Here  was  a  singular  union 
of  really  sound  reasons  why  Van  Buren  should  be  pre 
ferred  by  his  party  and  by  the  country  for  the  succession 
over  Calhoun,  with  the  strongest  reasons  why  Jackson, 
and  those  close  to  him,  should  be  in  most  eager  personal 
sympathy  with  the  preference.  In  December,  1829, 
Jackson  had  explicitly  pronounced  in  favor  of  Van  Buren. 
This  was  in  the  letter  to  Judge  Overton  of  Tennessee, 
which  Lewis  is  doubtless  correct  in  saying  he  asked 
Jackson  to  write  lest  the  latter  should  die  before  his 
successor  was  chosen.  Jackson  himself  drafted  the 
letter,  which  Lewis  copied  with  some  verbal  alteration  ; 
and  the  letter  sincerely  expressed  his  own  strong  opin 
ions.  After  alluding  to  the  harmony  between  Van 


102  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Buren  and  his  associates  in  the  war  and  post-office  de 
partments,  he  said  :  "  1  have  found  him  everything  that 
I  could  desire  him  to  be,  and  believe  him  not  only  de 
serving  my  confidence,  but  the  confidence  of  the  nation. 
Instead  of  his  being  selfish  and  intriguing,  as  has  been 
represented  by  some  of  his  opponents,  I  have  ever  found 
him  frank,  open,  candid,  and  manly.  As  a  counselor, 
he  is  able  and  prudent,  republican  in  his  principles,  and 
one  of  the  most  pleasant  men  to  do  business  with  I  ever 
knew.  He,  my  dear  friend,  is  well  qualified  to  fill  the 
highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the  people,  who  in  him  will 
find  a  true  friend  and  safe  depositary  of  their  rights 
and  liberty.  I  wish  I  could  say  as  much  for  Mr.  Cal- 
houn  and  some  of  his  friends.''  He  criticised  Calhoun 
for  his  silence  on  the  bank  question,  for  his  encourage 
ment  of  the  resolution  in  the  South  Carolina  legislature 
relative  to  the  tariff,  and  for  his  objection  to  the  appor 
tionment  of  the  surplus  revenues  after  the  national  debt 
should  be  paid.  Jackson  had  not  yet  definitely  learned 
from  Forsyth's  letter  about  Calhoun's  attitude  in  Mon 
roe's  cabinet ;  but  his  well-aroused  suspicion  doubtless 
influenced  his  expression.  His  strong  personal  liking 
for  the  secretary  of  state  had  been  evident  from  the 
beginning  of  the  administration.  In  a  letter  to  Jesse 
Hoyt  of  April  13,  1829,  the  latter  wrote  that  he  had 
found  the  president  affectionate,  confidential,  and  kind 
to  the  last  degree,  and  that  he  believed  there  was  no 
degree  of  good  feeling  or  confidence  which  the  president 
did  not  entertain  for  him.  In  July  he  wrote  to  Hamil 
ton  :  "  The  general  grows  upon  me  every  day.  I  can 
fairly  say  that  I  have  become  quite  enamored  with 
him." 

The  break  between  Calhoun   and  Jackson  was  kept 


JACKSON  AND   CALHOUN.  163 

from  the  public  until  early  in  1831.  In  the  preceding 
winter,  Duff  Green,  the  editor  of  the  "Telegraph," 
until  then  the  administration  newspaper,  but  still  en 
tirely  committed  to  Calhoun,  sought  to  have  the  publica 
tion  of  the  Calhoun- Jackson  correspondence  accompanied 
by  a  general  outburst  from  Republican  newspapers 
against  Jackson.  The  storm,  Benton  tells  us,  was  to 
seem  so  universal,  and  the  indignation  against  Van 
Buren  so  great,  that  even  Jackson's  popularity  would 
not  save  the  prime  minister.  Jackson's  friends,  Barry 
and  Kendall,  learning  of  this,  called  to  Washington  an 
unknown  Kentuckian  to  be  editor  of  a  new  and  loyal 
administration  paper.  Francis  P.  Blair  was  a  singu 
larly  astute  man,  whose  name,  and  the  name  of  whose 
family,  afterwards  became  famous  in  American  politics. 
H<3  belonged  to  the  race  of  advisers  of  great  men, 
found  by  experience  to  be  almost  as  important  in  a 
democracy  as  in  a  monarchy.  In  February,  1831, 
Calhoun  openly  declared  war  on  Jackson  by  publishing 
the  Seminole  correspondence.  Green  having  now  been 
safely  reflected  printer  to  Congress,  the  "  Telegraph," 
according  to  the  plan,  strongly  supported  Calhoun.  The 
"Globe,"  Blair's  paper,  attacked  Calhoun  and  upheld 
the  president.  The  importance  in  that  day  ascribed  by 
politicians  to  the  control  of  a  single  newspaper  seems 
curious.  In  1823,  Van  Buren,  while  a  federal  senator, 
was  interested  in  the  "  Albany  Argus,"  almost  steadily 
from  that  time  until  the  present  the  ably  managed 
organ  of  the  Albany  Regency ;  and  he  then  confiden 
tially  wrote  to  Hoyt :  "  Without  a  paper  thus  edited  at 
Albany  we  may  hang  our  harps  on  the  willows.  With 
it,  the  party  can  survive  a  thousand  such  convulsions  as 
those  which  now  agitate  and  probably  alarm  most  of 


164  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

those  around  you."  This  seems  an  astonishingly  high 
estimate  of  the  power  of  a  paper  which,  though  rela 
tively  conspicuous  in  the  state,  could  have  then  had  but 
a  small  circulation.  It  was,  however,  the  judgment  of 
a  most  sagacious  politician.  In  1822  he  complained  to 
Hoyt  that  his  expenses  of  this  description  were  too  heavy. 
In  1833  James  Gordon  Bennett,  then  a  young  journalist 
of  Philadelphia,  wrote  Hoyt  a  plain  intimation  that 
money  was  necessary  to  enable  him  to  continue  his  jour 
nalistic  warfare  in  Van  Buren's  behalf.  Anguish,  dis 
appointment,  despair,  he  said,  brooded  over  him,  while 
Van  Buren  chose  to  sit  still  and  sacrifice  those  who  had 
supported  him  in  every  weather.  Van  Buren  replied  that 
he  could  not  directly  or  indirectly  afford  pecuniary  aid 
to  Bennett's  press,  and  more  particularly  as  he  was  then 
situated  ;  that  if  Bennett  could  not  continue  friendly  to 
him  on  public  grounds  and  with  perfect  independence, 
he  could  only  regret  it,  but  he  desired  no  other  support. 
He  added,  however,  not  to  burn  his  ships  behind  him, 
that  he  had  supposed  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  ob 
taining  money  in  New  York,  if  their  "  friends  in  Phila 
delphia  could  not  all  together  make  out  to  sustain  one 
press."  Thus  was  invited  a  powerful  animosity,  vindic 
tively  shown  even  when  Van  Buren  was  within  three 
years  of  his  death. 

Soon  after  his  arrival  Blair  entered  the  famous 
Kitchen  Cabinet,  a  singularly  talented  body,  fond  enough 
indeed  of  "  wire-pulling,"  but  with  clear  and  steady 
political  convictions.  William  B.  Lewis  had  long  been 
a  close  personal  friend  of  Jackson  and  manager  of  his 
political  interests,  and  had  but  recently  earned  his  grati 
tude  by  rushing  successfully  to  the  defense  of  Mrs. 
Jackson's  reputation.  Kendall  and  Hill  were  adroit, 


DISSOLUTION  OF  JACKSON'S   CABINET.        165 

industrious,  skillful  men  ;  the  former  afterwards  post 
master-general,  and  the  latter  to  become  a  senator  from 
New  Hampshire.  Blair  entered  this  company  full  of 
zeal  against  nullification  and  the  United  States  Bank. 
Jackson  himself  was  so  strong-willed  a  man,  so  shrewd 
in  management,  so  skiUful  in  reading  the  public  temper, 
that  the  story  of  the  complete  domination  of  this  junto 
over  him  is  quite  absurd.  The  really  great  abilities  of 
these  men  and  their  entire  devotion  to  his  interests 
gained  a  profound  and  justifiable  influence  with  him, 
which  occasional  petty  or  unworthy  uses  made  of  it  did 
not  destroy.  No  one  can  doubt  that  Jackson  was  con 
firmed  by  them  in  the  judgment  to  which  Van  Buren 
urged  him  upon  great  political  issues.  The  secretary  of 
state  refused  to  give  the  new  paper  of  Blair  any  of  the 
printing  of  his  department,  lest  its  origin  should  be 
attributed  to  him,  and  because  he  wished  to  be  able  to 
say  truly  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Kendall, 
who  lived  through  the  civil  war,  strongly  loyal  to  the 
Union  and  to  Jackson's  memory,  to  die  a  wealthy  philan 
thropist,  declared  in  his  autobiography,  and  doubtless 
correctly,  that  the  u  Globe  "  was  not  established  by  Van 
Buren  or  his  friends,  but  by  friends  of  Jackson  who 
desired  his  reelection  for  another  four  years.  Neverthe 
less  Van  Buren  was  held  responsible  for  the  paper ; 
and  its  establishment  was  soon  followed  by  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  cabinet. 

This  explosion,  it  is  now  clear,  was  of  vast  advantage 
to  the  cause  of  the  Union.  It  took  place  in  April,  1831, 
and  in  part  at  least  was  Van  Buren's  work.  On  the 
9th  of  that  month  he  wrote  to  Edward  Livingston,  then 
a  senator  from  Louisiana  spending  the  summer  at  his  seat 
on  the  Hudson  River,  asking  him  to  start  for  Washing- 


166  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ton  the  day  after  he  received  the  letter,  and  to  avoid 
speculation  "  by  giving  out  that  "  he  was  "  going  to 
Philadelphia."  Livingston  wrote  back  from  Washing 
ton  to  his  wife  that  Van  Buren  had  taken  the  high  and 
popular  ground  that,  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
he  ought  not  to  remain  in  the  cabinet  when  its  public 
measures  would  be  attributed  to  his  intrigue,  and  thus 
made  to  injure  the  president ;  and  that  Van  Buren's 
place  was  pressed  upon  him  "  with  all  the  warmth  of 
friendship  and  every  appeal  to  my  love  of  country." 

Van  Buren,  with  courageous  skill,  put  his  resignation 
to  the  public  distinctly  on  the  ground  of  his  own  politi 
cal  aspiration.  On  April  11,  1831,  he  wrote  to  the 
president  a  letter  for  publication,  saying  that  from  the 
moment  he  had  entered  the  cabinet  it  had  been  his 
"  anxious  wish  and  zealous  endeavor  to  prevent  a  pre 
mature  agitation  of  the  question  "  of  the  succession, 
"and  at  all  events  to  discountenance,  and  if  possible 
repress,  the  disposition,  at  an  early  day  manifested,"  to 
connect  his  name  "  with  that  disturbing  topic."  Of  "  the 
sincerity  and  constancy  of  his  disposition  "  he  appealed 
to  the  president  to  judge.  But  he  had  not  succeeded, 
and  circumstances  beyond  his  control  had  given  the  sub 
ject  a  turn  which  could  not  then  "  be  remedied  except 
by  a  self-disfranchisement,  which,  even  if  dictated  by  " 
his  "  individual  wishes,  could  hardly  be  reconcilable 
with  propriety  or  self-respect."  In  the  situation  exist 
ing  at  the  time,  "  diversities  of  ulterior  preference  among 
the  friends  of  the  administration  "  were  unavoidable,  and 
he  added  :  "  Even  if  the  respective  advocates  of  those 
thus  placed  in  rivalship  be  patriotic  enough  to  resist  the 
temptation  of  creating  obstacles  to  the  advancement  of 
him  to  whose  elevation  they  are  opposed,  by  embar- 


CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY.          167 

rassing  the  branch  of  public  service  committed  to  his 
charge,  they  are  nevertheless,  by  their  position,  exposed 
to  the  suspicion  of  entertaining  and  encouraging  such 
views, — a  suspicion  which  can  seldom  fail,  in  the  end, 
to  aggravate  into  present  alienation   and  hostility  the 
prospective  differences  which  first  gave  rise  to  it."    The 
public  service,  he   said,  required  him  to  remove   such 
"  obstructions  "  from  "  the  successful  prosecution  of  pub 
lic  affairs ; "  and  he  intimated,  with  the  affectation  of 
self-depreciation    which    was    disagreeably   fashionable 
among  great  men  of  the  day,  that  the  example  he  set 
would,  u  notwithstanding  the  humility  of  its  origin,"  be 
found  worthy  of  respect  and  observance.     When  four 
years    later    he    accepted   the    presidential  nomination 
he   repeated    the    sentiment  of    this    letter,    but    more 
explicitly,   saying  that  his   "  name  was  first  associated 
with  the  question  of  General  Jackson's  successor  more 
through   the    ill-will  of    opponents  than    the   partiality 
of  friends."     This  seemed  very  true.      For  every  move 
ment  which  had  tended  to  commit  the  administration 
or   its   chief  against  Calhoun  or  his  doctrines,   he  had 
been  held  responsible  as  a  device  to  advance  himself. 
His    adversaries    had    proclaimed    him  not  so  much  a 
public    officer  as  a   self-seeking  candidate.     It   was    a 
rare  and  true  stroke  of   political  genius  to  admit   his 
aspiration  to  the  presidency ;  to  deny  his  present  can 
didacy  and  his  self-seeking ;    but,  lest  the    clamor   of 
his  enemies  should,  if  he  longer  held  his  office,  throw 
doubt    upon    his    sincerity,    to    withdraw    from    that 
station,  and  to  prevent  the  continued  pretense  that  he 
was  using  official  opportunities,  however  legitimately,  to 
increase   his  public   reputation   or  his  political  power. 
Thus  would  the  candidacy  be  thrust  on  him  by  his  ene- 


168  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

mies.  In  his  letter  he  announced  that  Jackson  had  con 
sented  to  stand  for  reelection  ;  and  that,  *"  without  a  total 
disregard  of  the  lights  of  experience,"  he  could  not  shut 
his  eyes  to  the  unfavorable  influence  which  his  continu 
ance  in  the  cabinet  might  have  upon  Jackson's  own  can 
vass  in  1832. 

In  accepting  the  resignation  Jackson  declared  the 
reasons  which  the  letter  had  presented  too  strong  to  be 
disregarded,  thus  practically  assenting  to  Van  Buren's 
candidacy  to  succeed  him.  Jackson  looked  with  sor 
row,  he  said,  upon  the  state  of  things  Van  Buren  had 
described.  But  it  was  "  but  an  instance  of  one  of  the 
evils  to  which  free  governments  must  ever  be  liable," 
an  evil  whose  remedy  lay  "  in  the  intelligence  and  public 
spirit  of  "  their  "  common  constituents,"  who  would  cor 
rect  it ;  and  in  that  belief  he  found  "  abundant  consola 
tion."  He  added  that,  with  the  best  opportunities  for 
observing  and  judging,  he  had  seen  in  Van  Buren  no 
other  desire  than  "  to  move  quietly  on  in  the  path  of  " 
his  duties,  and  "  to  promote  the  harmonious  conduct  of 
public  affairs."  "If  on  this  point,"  he  apostrophized 
the  departing  premier,  "  you  have  had  to  encounter 
detraction,  it  is  but  another  proof  of  the  utter  insuffi 
ciency  of  innocence  and  worth  to  shield  from  such  as 
saults." 

Never  was  a  presidential  candidate  more  adroitly  or 
less  dishonorably  presented  to  his  party  and  to  the 
country.  For  the  adroitness  lay  in  the  frank  avowal  of 
a  willingness  or  desire  to  be  president  and  a  resolution 
to  be  a  candidate,  —  for  which,  so  far  as  their  conduct 
went,  his  adversaries  were  really  responsible,  —  and  in 
seizing  an  undoubted  opportunity  to  serve  the  public. 
Quite  apart  from  the  sound  reason  that  the  secretary  of 


DISSOLUTION  OF  JACKSON'S   CABINET.       169 

state  should  not,  if  possible,  be  exposed  in  dealing  with 
public  questions  to  aspersions  upon  his  motives,  as  Van 
Buren  was  quite  right  in  saying  that  he  would  be,  it  was 
also  clear  that  the  cabinet  was  unharmonious  ;  and  that 
its  lack  of  harmony,  whatever  the  facts  or  wherever  the 
fault,  seriously  interfered  with  the  public  business.  The 
administration  and  the  country,  it  was  obvious,  were 
now  approaching  the  question  of  nullification,  and  upon 
that  question  it  was  but  patriotic  to  desire  that  its  mem 
bers  should  firmly  share  the  union  principles  of  their 
chief.  Within  a  few  weeks  after  the  dissolution  of  the 
cabinet,  Jackson  seized  the  opportunity  afforded  him  by 
an  invitation  from  the  city  of  Charleston  to  visit  it  on 
the  4bh  of  July,  to  sound  in  the  ears  of  nullification  a 
ringing  blast  for  the  Union.  If  he  could  go,  he  said,  he 
trusted  to  find  in  South  Carolina  "  all  the  men  of  talent, 
exalted  patriotism,  and  private  worth,"  however  divided 
they  might  have  been  before,  "  united  before  the  altar  of 
their  country  on  the  day  set  apart  for  the  solemn  cele 
bration  of  its  independence,  —  independence  which  can 
not  exist  without  union,  and  with  it  is  eternal."  The 
disunion  sentiments  ascribed  to  distinguished  citizens  of 
the  state  were,  he  hoped,  if  indeed  they  were  accurately 
reported,  "the  effect  of  momentary  excitement,  not 
deliberate  design."  For  all  the  work  then  performed  in 
defense  of  the  Union,  Jackson  and  his  advisers  of  the 
time  must  share  with  Webster  and  Clay  the  gratitude 
of  our  own  and  all  later  generations.  The  burst  of 
loyalty  in  April,  1861,  had  no  less  of  its  genesis  in  the 
intrepid  front  and  the  political  success  of  the  national 
administration  from  1831  to  1833,  than  in  the  pathetic 
and  glorious  appeals  and  aspirations  of  the  great  ora 
tors. 


170  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

Jackson  now  called  to  the  work  Edward  Livingston, 
privileged  to  perform  in  it  that  service  of  his  which 
deserves  a  splendid  immortality.  He  became  secretary 
of  state  on  May  24,  1831.  Eaton,  the  secretary  of  war, 
voluntarily  resigned  to  become  governor  of  Florida; 
and  Barry,  the  postmaster-general,  who  was  friendly  to 
the  reorganization,  was  soon  appointed  minister  to 
Spain,  in  which  post  Eaton  later  succeeded  him.  Ing- 
ham,  Branch,  and  Berrien,  the  Calhoun  members,  were 
required  to  resign.  The  new  cabinet,  apart  from  the 
state  department,  was  on  the  whole  far  abler  than  the 
old  ;  indeed,  it  was  one  of  the  ablest  of  American  cabi 
nets.  Below  Livingston  at  the  council  table  sat  Mc- 
Lane  of  Delaware,  recalled  from  the  British  mission  to 
take  the  treasury,  Governor  Cass  of  Michigan,  and  Sena 
tor  Woodbury  of  New  Hampshire,  secretaries  of  war 
and  navy.  Amos  Kendall  brought  to  the  post-office  his 
extraordinary  astuteness  and  diligence  in  administra 
tion  ;  and  Taney,  later  the  chief  justice,  was  attorney- 
general.  The  executive  talents  of  this  body  of  men, 
loyal  as  they  were  to  the  plans  of  Jackson  and  Van 
Buren,  promised,  and  they  afterwards  brought,  success 
in  the  struggle  for  the  principles  now  adopted  by  the 
party,  as  well  as  for  the  control  of  the  government. 
Van  Buren  stood  as  truly  for  a  policy  of  state  as  ever 
stood  any  candidate  before  the  American  people.  One 
finds  it  agreeable  now  to  escape  for  a  moment  from  the 
Washington  atmosphere  of  personal  controversy  and 
ambition.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  however,  that  a 
like  atmosphere  has  surrounded  even  those  political 
struggles  in  America,  only  three  or  four  in  number, 
which  have  been  greater  and  deeper  than  that  in  which 
Jackson  and  Van  Buren  were  the  chief  figures.  From 


SECRETARY  OF  STATE.  171 

this  temper  of  personal  controversy  and  ambition  the 
greatest  political  benefactors  of  history  have  not  been 
free,  so  inevitable  is  the  mingling  with  large  affairs  of 
the  varied  personal  motives,  conscious  and  unconscious, 
of  those  who  transact  them. 

When  Van  Buren  left  the  first  place  in  Jackson's 
cabinet,  the  latter,  too,  at  last  stood  for  the  definite  pol 
icy  which  he  had  but  imperfectly  adopted  when  he  was 
elected,  and  which,  as  a  practical  and  immediate  politi 
cal  plan,  it  is  reasonably  safe  to  assert,  was  most  largely 
the  creation  of  the  sagacious  mind  of  his  chief  associate. 
Before  Van  Buren  left  Albany  he  had  written  to  Hamil 
ton  on  February  21,  1829,  with  reference  to  Jackson's 
inaugural :   "  I  hope  the  general  will  not  find   it  neces 
sary  to  avow  any  opinion  upon  constitutional  questions 
at   war   with    the    doctrines    of    the    Jefferson     school. 
Whatever  his  views  may  be,  there  can  be  no  necessity 
of  doing  so  in  an  inaugural  address."     This  shows  the 
doubt,  which  had   been   caused  by  some  of  Jackson's 
utterances  and  votes,  of  his  intelligent  and  systematic 
adherence  to  the  political  creed  preached  by  Van  Buren. 
Jackson's   inaugural    was    colorless    and    safe    enough. 
Upon  strict  construction  he  said  that  he  should  "  keep 
steadily  in  view  the  limitations  as  well  as  the  extent  of 
the  executive  power ; "  that  he  would  be  animated  by 
a  proper  respect  for  those  sovereign  members  of   our 
Union,  taking  care  not  to  confound  the  powers  they  have 
reserved  to  themselves  with  those  they  have  granted  to 
the  confederacy."     The  bank  he  did  not  mention.    And 
upon  the  living  and  really  great  question,  to  which  Van 
Buren  had  given  so  much  study,  Jackson  said,  himself 
probably  having  a  grim  sense  of  humor  at  the  absurd 
emptiness  of  the  sentence  :  "  Internal  improvement  and 


172  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  so  far  as  they  can  be  pro 
moted  by  the  constitutional  acts  of  the  federal  govern 
ment,  are  of  high  importance." 

Very  different  was  the  situation  when  two  years  later 
Van  Buren  left  the  cabinet.  In  several  state  papers  of 
great  dignity  and  ability  and  yet  popular  and  interest 
ing  in  style,  Jackson  had  formulated  a  political  creed 
closely  consistent  with  that  advocated  by  Van  Buren  in 
the  senate.  Upon  internal  improvements,  Jackson,  on 
May  27,  1830,  sent  to  the  house  his  famous  Maysville 
Road  veto.  That  road  was  exclusively  within  the  state 
of  Ohio,  and  not  connected  with  any  existing  system  of 
improvements.  Jackson  very  well  said  that  if  it  could 
be  considered  national,  no  further  distinction  between 
the  appropriate  duties  of  the  general  and  state  govern 
ments  need  be  attempted.  He  pointed  out  the  tendency 
of  such  appropriations,  little  by  little,  to  distort  the 
meaning  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  found  in  former  legis 
lation  "  an  admonitory  proof  of  the  force  of  implication, 
and  that  necessity  of  guarding  the  Constitution  with 
sleepless  vigilance  against  the  authority  of  precedents 
which  have  not  the  sanction  of  its  most  plainly  defined 
powers."  In  his  annual  message  of  December,  1830, 
he  referred  to  the  system  of  federal  subscriptions  to  pri 
vate  corporate  enterprises,  saying  :  "  The  power  which 
the  general  government  would  acquire  within  the  several 
states  by  becoming  the  principal  stockholder  in  corpora 
tions,  controlling  every  canal  and  each  sixty  or  hundred 
miles  of  every  important  road,  and  giving  a  proportion 
ate  vote  to  all  their  elections,  is  almost  inconceivable, 
and  in  my  view  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  people." 
With  these  utterances  ended  the  very  critical  struggle 
to  give  the  federal  government  a  power  which  even 


SECRETARY  OF  STATE.  173 

in  those  days  would  have  been  great,  and  which,  as  has 
already  been  said,  had  it  continued  with  the  growth  of 
railways,  would  have  enormously  and  radically  changed 
our  system  of  government. 

Before  he  left  the  senate  Van  Buren  had  pronounced 
against  the  Bank  of  the  United  States ;  but  Jackson  did 
not  mention  it  in  his  inaugural.  In  his  first  annual 
message,  however,  Jackson  warned  Congress  that  the 
charter  of  the  bank  would  expire  in  1836,  and  that 
deliberation  upon  its  renewal  ought  to  commence  at 
once.  "  Both  the  constitutionality  and  the  expediency 
of  the  law  creating  this  bank,"  he  said,  "  are  well  ques 
tioned  .  .  . ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  by  all  that  it  has 
failed  in  the  great  end  of  establishing  a  uniform  and 
sound  currency."  This  was  plain  enough  for  a  first 
utterance.  A  year  later  he  told  Congress  that  nothing 
had  occurred  to  lessen  in  any  degree  the  dangers  which 
many  citizens  apprehended  from  that  institution  as  then 
organized,  though  he  outlined  an  institution  which  should 
be  not  a  corporation,  but  a  branch  of  the  treasury  depart 
ment,  and  not,  as  he  thought,  obnoxious  to  constitutional 
objections. 

The  removal  of  the  Cherokee  Indians  from  within 
the  state  of  Georgia  he  defended  by  considerations 
which  were  practically  unanswerable.  It  was  danger 
ously  inconsistent  with  our  political  system  to  maintain 
within  the  limits  of  a  state  Indian  tribes,  free  from  the 
obligations  of  state  laws,  having  a  tribal  independence, 
and  bound  only  by  treaty  relations  with  the  United 
States.  It  was  harsh  to  remove  the  Indians;  but  it 
would  have  been  harsher  to  them  and  to  the  white  peo 
ple  of  the  state  to  have  supported  by  federal  arms  an 
Indian  sovereignty  within  its  limits.  Jackson,  with  true 


174  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Democratic  jealousy,  refused  in  his  political  and  execu 
tive  policy  to  defer  to  the  merely  moral  weight  of  the 
opinion  of  the  supreme  court.  For  in  that  tribunal 
political  and  social  exigencies  could  have  but  limited 
force  in  answering  a  question  which,  as  the  court  itself 
decided,  called  for  a  political  remedy,  which  the  presi 
dent  and  not  the  court  could  apply. 

The  tariff  might,  Jackson  declared,  be  constitutionally 
used  for  protective  purposes ;  but  the  deliberate  policy 
of  his  party  was  now  plainly  intimated.  In  his  first 
message  he  u  regretted  that  the  complicated  restrictions 
which  now  embarrass  the  intercourse  of  nations  could 
not  by  common  consent  be  abolished."  In  the  Mays- 
ville  veto  he  said  that,  "  as  long  as  the  encouragement 
of  domestic  manufactures  "  was  "  directed  to  national 
ends,"  ...  it  should  receive  from  him  u  a  temperate  but 
steady  support."  But  this  is  to  be  read  with  the  expres 
sion  in  the  same  paper  that  the  people  had  a  right  to 
demand  "  the  reduction  of  every  tax  to  as  low  a  point 
as  the  wise  observance  of  the  necessity  to  protect  that 
portion  of  our  manufactures  and  labor,  whose  prosperity 
is  essential  to  our  national  safety  and  independence,  will 
allow."  This  encouragement  was,  he  said  in  his  inaugu 
ral,  to  be  given  to  those  products  which  might  be  found 
"  essential  to  our  national  independence."  In  his  sec 
ond  message  he  declared  "  the  obligations  upon  all  the 
trustees  of  political  power  to  exempt  those  for  whom 
they  act  from  all  unnecessary  burdens ; "  that  "  the 
resources  of  the  nation  beyond  those  required  for  the 
immediate  and  necessary  purposes  of  government  can 
nowhere  be  so  well  deposited  as  in  the  pockets  of  the 
people  ; "  that  "  objects  of  national  importance  alone 
ought  to  be  protected  ;  "  and  that  "  of  those  the  produc- 


SECRETARY   OF  STATE.  175 

tions  of  our  soil,  our  mines,  and  our  workshops,  essential 
to  national  defense,  occupy  the  first  rank."  Other  do 
mestic  industries,  having  a  national  importance,  and 
which  might,  after  temporary  protection,  compete  with 
foreign  labor  on  equal  terms,  merited,  he  said,  the  same 
attention  in  a  subordinate  degree.  The  economic  light 
here  was  not  very  clear  or  strong,  but  perhaps  as  strong 
as  it  often  is  in  a  political  paper.  Jackson's  conclu 
sion  was  that  the  tariff  then  existing  taxed  some  of  the 
comforts  of  life  too  highly  ;  protected  interests  too  local 
and  minute  to  justify  a  general  exaction  ;  and  forced 
some  manufactures  for  which  the  country  was  not  ripe. 

All  this  practical  and  striking  growth  in  political 
science  had  taken  place  during  the  two  years  of  Jack 
son's  and  Van  Buren's  almost  daily  intercourse  at  Wash 
ington.  It  is  impossible  from  materials  yet  made  public 
to  point  out  with  precision  the  latter's  handiwork  in 
each  of  these  papers.  James  A.  Hamilton  describes  his 
own  long  nights  at  the  White  House  on  the  messages  of 
1829  and  1830  ;  and  his  were  not  the  only  nights  of  the 
kind  spent  by  Jackson's  friends.  Jackson,  like  other 
strong  men,  and  like  some  whose  opportunities  of  educa 
tion  had  been  far  ampler  than  his,  freely  used  literary 
assistance,  although,  with  all  his  inaccuracies,  he  himself 
wrote  in  a  vigorous,  lucid,  and  interesting  style.  But 
with  little  doubt  the  political  positions  taken  in  these 
papers,  and  which  made  a  definite  and  lasting  creed, 
were  more  immediately  the  work  of  the  secretary  of 
state.  The  consultations  with  Van  Buren,  of  which 
Hamilton  tells,  are  only  glimpses  of  what  must  continu 
ally  have  gone  on.  At  the  time  of  Jackson's  inaugura 
tion  Hamilton  wrote  that  the  latter's  confidence  was  re 
posed  in  men  in  no  way  equal  to  him  in  natural  parts. 


176  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

but  who  had  been  useful  to  him  in  covering  "  his  very 
lamentable  defects  of  education,"  and  whom,  through 
his  reluctance  to  expose  these  defects  to  others,  he  was 
compelled  to  keep  about  him.  He  added  that  Van 
Buren  could  never  reach  the  same  relation  which 
Lewis  held  with  the  general,  because  the  latter  would 
"  not  yield  himself  so  readily  to  superior  as  to  inferior 
minds."  This  was  a  mistake.  Van  Buren's  personal 
loyalty  to  Jackson,  his  remarkable  tact  and  delicacy,  had 
promptly  aroused  in  Jackson  that  extraordinary  liking 
for  him  which  lasted  until  Jackson  died.  With  this  ad 
vantage.  Van  Buren's  clear-cut  theories  of  political  con 
duct  were  easily  lodged  in  Jackson's  naturally  wise 
mind,  to  whose  prepossessions  and  prejudices  they  were 
agreeable,  and  received  there  the  deference  due  to  the 
practical  sagacity  in  which  Van  Buren's  obvious  political 
success  had  proved  him  to  be  a  master.  Van  Buren 
was  doubtless  greatly  aided  by  the  Kitchen  Cabinet. 
He  was  careful  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  those  who 
had  so  familiar  an  access  to  Jackson.  Kendall's  singular 
and  useful  ability  he  soon  discovered.  It  was  at  the 
latter's  instance  that  Kendall  was  invited  to  dinner  at 
the  White  House,  where  Van  Buren  paid  him  special 
attention.  The  influence  of  the  members  of  the  Kitchen 
Cabinet  with  their  master  has  been  much  exaggerated. 
Soon  after  Lewis  was  appointed,  and  in  spite  of  his  per 
sonal  intimacy  and  of  his  rumored  influence  with  the 
president,  he  was,  as  he  wrote  to  Hamilton,  in  some 
anxiety  whether  he  might  not  be  removed ;  the  presi 
dent  had  at  least,  he  said,  entertained  a  proposition  to 
remove  him,  and  was  therefore,  in  view  of  Jackson's 
great  debt  to  him,  no  longer  entitled  to  his  "  friendship 
or  future  support." 


POLITICAL  REMOVALS.  177 

Very  soon  after  Van  Buren's  withdrawal  from  the 
cabinet,  he  was  accused  of  primarily  and  chiefly  causing 
the  official  proscription  of  men  for  political  opinions 
which  began  in  the  federal  service  under  Jackson.  From 
that  time  to  the  present  the  accusation  has  been  care 
lessly  repeated  from  one  writer  to  another,  with  little 
original  examination  of  the  facts.  It  is  clear  that  Van 
Buren  neither  began  nor  caused  this  demoralizing  and 
disastrous  abuse.  When  he  reached  Washington  in 
1829,  the  removals  were  in  full  and  lamentable  progress. 
In  the  very  first  days  of  the  administration,  McLean 
was  removed  from  the  office  of  postmaster-general  to  a 
seat  in  the  supreme  court,  because,  so  Adams  after  an 
interview  with  him  wrote  in  his  diary  on  March  14, 
1829,  "  he  refused  to  be  made  the  instrument  of  the 
sweeping  proscription  of  postmasters  which  is  to  be  one 
of  the  samples  of  the  promised  reform."  This  was  a 
week  or  two  before  Van  Buren  reached  Washington. 
On  the  same  day  Samuel  Swartwout  wrote  to  Hoyt  from 
Washington  :  "  No  damned  rascal  who  made  use  of  his 
office  or  its  profits  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  Mr.  Adams 
in,  and  General  Jackson  out  of  power,  is  entitled  to  the 
least  lenity  or  mercy,  save  that  of  hanging.  .  .  .  Whether 
or  not  I  shall  get  anything  in  the  general  scramble  for 
plunder  remains  to  be  proven  ;  but  I  rather  guess  I 
shall.  ...  I  know  Mr.  Ingham  slightly,  and  would  rec 
ommend  you  to  push  like  a  devil,  if  you  expect  any 
thing  from  that  quarter.  ...  If  I  can  only  keep  my 
own  legs,  I  shall  do  well ;  but  I  'm  darned  if  I  can  carry 
any  weight  with  me."  This  man,  against  Van  Buren's 
earnest  protest  and  to  his  great  disturbance,  had  some 
of  the  devil's  luck  in  pushing.  He  was  appointed  col 
lector  of  customs  at  New  York,  —  one  of  the  principal 


178  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

financial  offices  in  the  country.  It  is  not  altogether 
unsatisfactory  to  read  of  the  scandalous  defalcation  of 
which  he  was  afterwards  guilty,  and  of  the  serious  injury 
it  dealt  his  party.  The  temper  which  he  exposed  so 
ingenuously,  filled  Washington  at  the  time.  Nor  did  it 
come  only  or  chiefly  from  one  quarter  of  the  country. 
Kendall,  then  fresh  from  Kentucky,  who  had  been  ap 
pointed  fourth  auditor,  wrote  to  his  wife,  with  interest 
ingly  mingled  sentiments  :  "  I  turned  out  six  clerks  on 
Saturday.  Several  of  them  have  families  and  are  poor. 
It  was  the  most  painful  thing  I  ever  did  ;  but  I  could 
not  well  get  along  without  it.  Among  them  is  a  poor 
old  man  with  a  young  wife  and  several  children.  I 
shall  help  to  raise  a  contribution  to  get  him  back  to  Ohio. 
...  I  shall  have  a  private  carriage  to  go  out  with  me 
and  bring  my  whole  brood  of  little  ones.  Bless  their 
sweet  faces." 

Van  Buren  confidentially  wrote  to  Hamilton  from 
Albany  in  March,  1829 :  "  If  the  general  makes  one 
removal  at  this  moment  he  must  go  on.  Would  it  not 
be  better  to  get  the  streets  of  Washington  clear  of  office- 
seekers  first  in  the  way  I  proposed  ?  ...  As  to  the 
publication  in  the  newspapers  I  have  more  to  say.  So 
far  as  depends  on  me,  my  course  will  be  to  restore  by  a 
single  order  every  one  who  has  been  turned  out  by  Mr. 
Clay  for  political  reasons,  unless  circumstances  of  a  per 
sonal  character  have  since  arisen  which  would  make  the 
reappointment  in  any  case  improper.  To  ascertain  that 
will  take  a  little  time.  There  I  would  pause."  Among 
the  Mackenzie  letters  is  one  from  Lorenzo  Hoyt,  describ 
ing  an  interview  with  Van  Buren  while  governor,  and 
then  complaining  that  the  latter  would  "  not  lend  the 
utmost  weight  of  his  influence  to  displace  from  office  such 


POLITICAL  REMOVALS.  179 

men  as  John  Duer,"  Adams's  appointee  as  United  States 
attorney  at  New  York.  If  they  had  been  struggling  for 
political  success  for  the  benefit  of  their  opponents,  he 
angrily  wrote,  he  wished  to  know  it.  He  added,  how 
ever,  that,  from  the  behavior  of  the  president  thus  far,  he 
thought  Jackson  would  "  go  the  whole  hog."  This  was 
before  Van  Buren  reached  Washington.  In  answer  to 
an  insolent  letter  of  Jesse  Hoyt  urging  a  removal,  and 
telling  the  secretary  of  state  that  there  was  a  "  charm 
attending  bold  measures  extremely  fascinating  "  which 
had  given  Jackson  all  his  glory,  Van  Buren  wrote  back  : 
"  Here  I  am  engaged  in  the  most  intricate  and  important 
affairs,  which  are  new  to  me,  and  upon  the  successful 
conduct  of  which  my  reputation  as  well  as  the  interests 
of  the  country  depend,  and  which  keep  me  occupied  from 
early  in  the  morning  until  late  at  night.  And  can  you 
think  it  kind  or  just  to  harass  me  under  such  circum 
stances  with  letters  which  no  man  of  common  sensibility 
can  read  without  pain  ?  .  .  .  I  must  be  plain  with  you. 
.  .  .  The  terms  upon  which  you  have  seen  fit  to  place 
our  intercourse  are  inadmissible."  Ingham,  Jackson's 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  the  next  day  wrote  to  this 
typical  office-seeker  that  the  rage  for  office  in  New  York 
was  such  that  an  enemy  menacing  the  city  with  deso 
lation  would  not  cause  more  excitement.  He  added, 
speaking  of  his  own  legitimate  work  :  "  These  duties 
cannot  be  postponed  ;  and  I  do  assure  you  that  I  am 
compelled  daily  to  file  away  long  lists  of  recommenda 
tions,  etc.,  without  reading  them,  although  I  work  18 
hours  out  of  the  24  with  all  diligence.  The  appoint 
ments  can  be  postponed  ;  other  matters  cannot ;  and  it 
was  one  of  the  prominent  errors  of  the  late  administra 
tion  that  they  suffered  many  important  public  interests 


180  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

to  be  neglected,  while  they  were  cruising  about  to  secure 
or  buy  up  partisans.     This  we  must  not  do." 

Benton,  friendly  as  he  was  to  Jackson,  condemned 
the  system  of  removals ;  and  his  fairness  may  well  be 
trusted.  He  said  that  in  Jackson's  first  year  (in  which 
De  Tocqueville,  whom  he  was  answering,  said  that 
Jackson  had  removed  every  removable  functionary) 
there  were  removed  but  690  officers  through  the  whole 
United  States  for  all  causes,  of  whom  491  were  post 
masters  :  the  entire  number  of  postmasters  being  at  the 
time  nearly  8,000.  Kendall,  reviewing  the  first  three 
years  of  Jackson's  administration  near  their  expiration, 
said  that  in  the  city  of  Washington  there  had  been 
removed  but  one  officer  out  of  seven,  and  "  most  of  them 
for  bad  conduct  and  character,"  a  statement  some  of 
whose  significance  doubtless  depends  upon  what  was 
"  bad  character,"  but  which  still  fairly  limits  the  epithet 
"  wholesale  "  customarily  applied  to  these  removals.  In 
the  post-office  department,  he  said,  the  removals  had  been 
only  one  out  of  sixteen,  and  in  the  whole  government 
but  one  out  of  eleven.  Kendall  was  speaking  for  party 
purposes ;  but  he  was  cautious  and  precise  ;  and  his 
statements,  made  near  the  time,  show  how  far  behind 
the  sudden  "  clean  sweep  "  of  1861  was  this  earlier 
essay  in  "  spoils,"  and  how  much  exaggeration  there 
lias  been  on  the  subject.  Benton  says  that  in  the  de 
partments  at  Washington  a  majority  of  the  employees 
were  opposed  to  Jackson  throughout  his  administration. 
Of  the  officers  having  a  judicial  function,  such  as  land 
and  claims  commissioners,  territorial  judges,  justices  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  none  were  removed.  The 
readiness  to  remove  was  stimulated  by  the  discovery  of 
the  frauds  of  Tobias  Watkins,  made  just  after  his 


POLITICAL  REMOVALS.  181 

removal  from  the  fourth  auditor's  place,  to  which  Ken 
dall  was  appointed.  Watkins  had  been  Adams's  warm 
personal  friend,  so  the  latter  states  in  his  diary,  and 
''an  over  active  partisan  against  Jackson  at  the  last 
presidential  election."  Unreasonable  as  was  a  general 
inference  from  one  of  the  instances  of  dishonesty  which 
occur  under  the  best  administrations,  and  a  flagrant 
instance  of  which  was  soon  to  occur  under  his  own 
administration,  it  justified  Jackson  in  his  own  eyes  for 
many  really  shameful  removals.  There  had  doubtless 
been  among  office-holders  under  Adams  a  good  deal  of 
the  "  offensive  partisanship  "  of  our  day,  many  expres 
sions  of  horror  by  subordinate  officers  at  the  picture  of 
Jackson  as  president.  All  this  had  angered  Jackson, 
whose  imperial  temper  readily  classed  his  subordinates 
as  servants  of  Andrew  Jackson,  rather  than  as  ministers 
of  the  public  service.  Moreover,  his  accession,  as  Ben- 
ton  not  unfairly  pointed  out,  was  the  first  great  party 
change  since  Jefferson  had  succeeded  the  elder  Adams. 
Offices  had  greatly  increased  in  number.  In  the  pro 
found  democratic  change  that  had  been  actively  operat 
ing  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the  force  of  old  traditions 
had  been  broken  in  many  useful  as  in  many  useless 
things.  Great  numbers  of  inferior  offices  had  now 
become  political,  not  only  in  New  York,  but  in  Penn 
sylvania,  Georgia,  and  other  states.  Adams's  adminis 
tration,  except  in  the  change  of  policy  upon  large  ques 
tions,  had  been  a  continuation  of  Monroe's.  He  went 
from  the  first  place  in  Monroe's  cabinet  to  the  presi 
dency.  His  secretaries  of  the  treasury  and  the  navy 
and  his  postmaster-general  and  attorney-general  had 
held  office  under  Monroe,  the  latter  three  in  the  very 
same  places.  But  Jackson  thrust  out  of  the  presidency 


182  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

his  rival,  who  had  naturally  enough  been  earnestly 
sustained  by  large  numbers  of  his  subordinates  ;  and 
Adams's  appointees  were  doubtless  in  general  followers 
of  himself  and  of  Clay. 

Jackson's  first  message  contained  a  serious  defense 
of  the  removals.  Men  long  in  office,  he  said,  acquired 
the  "  habit  of  looking  with  indifference  upon  the  public 
interests,"  and  office  became  considered  "  a  species  of 
property."  "  The  duties  of  all  public  officers,"  he 
declared,  with  an  ignorance  then  very  common  among 
Americans,  could  be  "made  so  plain  and  simple  that 
men  of  intelligence  may  readily  qualify  themselves  for 
their  performance."  Further,  he  pointed  out  that  no 
one  man  had  *'  any  more  intrinsic  right  "  to  office  than 
another ;  and  therefore  "  no  individual  wrong "  was 
done  by  removal.  The  officer  removed,  he  concluded, 
with  almost  a  demagogic  touch,  had  the  same  means  of 
earning  a  living  as  "  the  millions  who  never  held  office." 
In  spite  of  individual  distress  he  wished  "  rotation  in 
office  "  to  become  "  a  leading  principle  in  the  Republican 
creed."  Unfounded  as  most  of  this  is  now  clearly  seen 
to  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  reasoning  was  convincing  to 
a  very  large  part  of  the  American  people. 

In  his  own  department  Van  Buren  practiced  little  of 
the  proscription  which  was  active  elsewhere.  Of  seven 
teen  foreign  representatives,  but  four  were  removed  in 
the  first  year.  Doubtless  he  was  fortunate  in  having  an 
office  without  the  amount  of  patronage  of  the  post-office 
or  the  treasury.  Nothing  in  his  career,  however,  showed 
a  personal  liking  for  removals.  The  distribution  of 
offices  was  not  distasteful  to  him ;  but  his  temper  was 
neither  prescriptive  nor  unfriendly.  At  times  even  his 
partisan  loyalty  was  doubted  for  his  reluctance  in  this, 


POLITICAL  REMOVALS.  183 

which  was  soon  deemed  an  appropriate  and  even  neces 
sary  party  work. 

But  Van  Buren  did  not  oppose  the  ruinous  and  de 
moralizing  system.  Powerful  as  he  was  with  Jackson, 
wise  and  far-seeing  as  he  was,  he  must  receive  for  his 
acquiescence,  or  even  for  his  silence,  a  part  of  the  con 
demnation  which  the  American  people,  as  time  goes  on, 
will  more  and  more  visit  upon  one  of  the  great  political 
offenses  committed  against  their  political  integrity  and 
welfare.  But  it  must  in  justice  be  remembered,  not 
only  that  Van  Buren  did  not  begin,  or  actively  conduct 
the  distribution  of  spoils  ;  not  only  that  his  acquiescence 
was  in  a  practice  which  in  his  own  state  he  had  found 
well  established ;  but  that  the  practice  in  which  he  thus 
joined  was  one  which  it  is  probable  he  could  not  have 
fully  resisted  without  his  own  political  destruction,  and 
perhaps  the  temporary  prostration  of  the  political  causes 
to  which  he  was  devoted.  Though  these  be  palliations 
and  not  defenses,  the  biographer  ought  not  to  apply  to 
human  nature  a  rule  of  unprecedented  austerity.  In 
Van  Buren's  politic  yielding  there  was  little,  if  any,  more 
timidity  or  time-serving  than  in  the  like  yielding  by 
every  man  holding  great  office  in  the  United  States  since 
Jackson's  inauguration  ;  and  the  worst,  the  most  cor 
rupting,  and  the  most  demoralizing  official  proscription 
in  America  took  place  thirty-two  years  afterwards,  and 
under  a  president  who,  in  wise  and  exalted  patriotism,, 
was  one  of  the  greatest  statesmen,  as  he  has  been  per 
haps  the  best  loved,  of  Americans,  and  to  whom  blame 
ought  to  be  assigned  all  the  larger  by  reason  of  the 
extraordinary  power  and  prestige  he  enjoyed,  and  the 
moral  fervor  of  the  nation  behind  him,  which  rendered 
less  necessary  this  unworthy  aid  of  inferior  patronage. 


184  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

So  crowded  and  interesting  were  the  two  years  of 
Van  Buren's  life  in  the  cabinet  with  matters  apart  from 
the  special  duties  of  his  office,  that  it  is  only  at  the  last, 
and  briefly,  that  an  account  can  be  given  of  his  career 
as  secretary  of  state.  His  conduct  of  foreign  affairs 
was  firm,  adroit,  dignified,  and  highly  successful.  It 
utterly  broke  the  ideal  of  turbulent  and  menacing  incom 
petence  which  the  Whigs  set  up  for  Jackson's  presi 
dency.  He  had  to  solve  no  difficulty  of  the  very  first 
orders  ;  for  the  United  States  were  in  profound  peace 
with  the  whole  world.  He  performed,  however,  with 
skill  and  success  two  diplomatic  services  of  real,  impor 
tance,  services  which  brought  deserved  and  most  valu 
able  strength  to  Jackson's  administration.  The  Ameri 
can  claims  for  French  spoliations  upon  American  ships 
during  the  operation  of  Napoleon's  Berlin  and  Milan 
decrees  had  been  under  discussion  for  many  years. 
They  were  now  resolutely  pressed.  In  his  message  of 
December,  1829,  Jackson,  doubtless  under  Van  Buren's 
advice,  paid  some  compliments  to  "  France,  our  ancient 
ally;"  but  then  said  very  plainly  that  these  claims, 
unless  satisfied,  would  continue  "  a  subject  of  unpleas 
ant  discussion  and  possible  collision  between  the  two 
governments."  He  politely  referred  to  "  the  known 
integrity  of  the  French  monarch,"  Charles  X.,  as  an 
assurance  that  the  claims  would  be  paid.  A  few  months 
afterwards  this  Bourbon  was  tumbled  off  the  French 
throne  ;  and  in  December,  1830,  Jackson  with  increased 
courtliness,  and  with  a  flattering  allusion  to  Lafayette, 
conspicuous  in  this  milder  revolution  as  he  had  been  in 
1789,  rejoiced  in  "  the  high  voucher  we  possess  for  the 
enlarged  views  and  pure  integrity  "  of  Louis  Philippe. 
The  new  American  vigor,  doubtless  aided  by  the  liberal 


BRITISH  COLONIAL   TRADE.  185 

change  in  France,  brought  a  treaty  on  July  4,  1831, 
under  which  $5,000,000  was  to  be  paid  by  France,  a 
result  which  Jackson,  with  pardonable  boasting,  said  in 
his  message  of  December,  1831,  was  an  encouragement 
"  for  perseverance  in  the  demands  of  justice,"  and  would 
admonish  other  powers,  if  any,  inclined  to  evade  those 
demands,  that  they  would  never  be  abandoned.  The 
French  treaty  came  so  soon  after  Van  Buren's  retire 
ment  from  the  state  department,  and  followed  so  natu 
rally  upon  the  methods  of  his  negotiation,  and  his  instruc 
tions  to  William  C.  Rives,  our  minister  at  Paris,  that 
much  of  its  credit  belonged  to  him.  In  March,  1830,  a 
treaty  was  made  with  Denmark  requiring  the  payment 
of  $650,000  for  Danish  spoliations  on  American  com 
merce.  The  effective  pressing  of  these  claims  was  justly 
one  of  the  most  popular  performances  of  the  administra 
tion.  Commercial  treaties  were  concluded  with  Austria 
in  August,  1829  ;  with  Turkey  in  May,  1830  ;  and  with 
Mexico  in  April,  1831. 

But  the  chief  transaction  of  Van  Buren's  foreign 
administration  was  the  opening  of  trade  in  American 
vessels  between  the  United  States  and  the  British  West 
Indian  colonies.  This  commerce  was  then  relatively 
much  more  important  to  the  United  States  than  in  later 
times ;  and  it  was  chiefly  by  American  shipping 
that  American  commerce  was  carried  §n  with  foreign 
countries.  The  absurd  and  odious  restrictions  upon 
intercourse  so  highly  natural  and  advantageous  to 
the  people  of  our  seaboard  and  of  the  British  West 
Indian  islands  had  led  to  smuggling  on  a  large  scale, 
and  were  fruitful  of  international  irritations.  Retalia 
tory  acts  of  Congress  and  Parliament,  prohibitive 
proclamations  of  our  presidents,  and  British  orders  in 


186  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

council,  had  at  different  times,  since  the  close  of  the 
second  British  war  in  1815,  oppressed  or  prevented 
honest  and  profitable  trade  between  neighbors  who 
ought  to  have  been  friendly  traders.  Van  Buren  found 
the  immediate  position  to  be  as  follows.  In  July,  1825, 
an  act  of  Parliament  had  allowed  foreign  vessels  to  trade 
to  the  British  colonies  upon  conditions.  To  secure  for 
American  vessels  the  benefit  of  this  act,  it  was  necessary 
that  within  one  year  American  ports  should  be  open 
to  British  vessels  bringing  the  same  kind  of  British 
or  colonial  produce  as  could  be  imported  in  American 
vessels  ;  that  British  and  American  vessels  in  the  trade 
should  pay  the  same  government  charges  ;  that  alien 
duties  on  British  vessels  and  cargoes,  that  is,  duties  not 
imposed  on  the  like  vessels  and  cargoes  owned  by 
Americans,  should  be  suspended ;  and  that  the  provi 
sion  of  an  American  law  of  1823  limiting  the  privileges 
of  the  colonial  trade  to  British  vessels  carrying  colonial 
produce  to  American  ports  directly  from  the  colonies 
exporting  it,  and  without  stopping  at  intermediate  ports, 
should  be  repealed.  John  Quincy  Adams's  administra 
tion  had  failed  within  the  year  to  comply  with  the  con 
ditions  imposed  by  the  British  law  of  1825.  In  1826, 
therefore,  Great  Britain  forbade  this  trade  and  inter 
course  in  American  vessels.  Adams  retorted  with  a 
counter  prohibition  in  March,  1827.  And  in  this  unfor 
tunate  position  Van  Buren  found  our  commercial  rela 
tions  with  the  West  Indian,  Bahama,  and  South  Ameri 
can  colonies  of  England.  The  situation  was  aggravated 
by  a  claim  made  by  the  American  government  in  1823 
that  American  goods  should  pay  in  the  colonial  ports 
no  higher  duties  than  British  goods,  a  protest  against 
British  protection  to  British  industry  in  the  British  colo- 


BRITISH  COLONIAL   TRADE.  187 

nies  coming  with  little  grace  from  a  country  itself  main 
taining  the  protective  system.  Adams  had  sent  Galla- 
tin  to  England  to  remedy  the  difficulty,  but  without 
success. 

Van  Buren  adopted  a  different  method  of  negotiation. 
A  more  conciliatory  bearing  was  assumed  towards  our 
traditional  adversary.     Jackson,  in  language   sounding 
strangely  from  his  imperious  mouth,  was  made  to  say  in 
his  first  message  that  "with  Great  Britain,  alike  dis 
tinguished  in  peace  and  war,  we  may  look  forward  to 
years  of  peaceful,  honorable,  and  elevated  competition  ; 
that  it  is  their  policy  to  preserve  the  most  cordial  rela 
tions."     These,  he  said,  were  his  own  views ;  and  such 
were   "  the  prevailing  sentiments  of  our  constituents." 
In  his  instructions  to  McLane,  the  minister  at  London, 
Van  Buren,  departing  widely  from  conventional  diplo 
macy,  expressly  conceded   that  the  American  govern 
ment  had  been  wrong  in  its  claim  that  England  should 
admit  to  its  colonies  American  goods  on  as  favorable 
terms  as  British  goods ;  that  it  had  been  wrong  in  re 
quiring  British  ships  bringing  colonial  produce  to  come 
and  go  directly  from  and  to  the  producing  colonies ;  and 
that  it  had  been  wrong  in  refusing  the  privileges  offered 
by  the  British  law  of  1825.     This  frank  surrender  of 
untenable  positions  showed  the  highest  skill  in  negotia 
tion,  a  business  for  which  Van  Buren  was  perhaps  bet 
ter  equipped  than  any  American  of  his  time.     In  these 
points  we  were  "  assailable ;  "  we  had  "  too  long  and 
too   tenaciously"  resisted   British  rights.     After  these 
admissions,  it  would,  he  said,  be  improper  for  Great 
Britain  to  suffer  "  any  feelings  that  find  their  origin  in 
the   past   pretensions  of   this    government   to  have  an 
adverse  influence  upon  the  present  conduct  of    Great 


188  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Britain."  McLane  was  to  tell  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen 
that  "  to  set  up  the  act  of  the  late  administration  as  the 
cause  of  forfeiture  of  privileges  which  would  otherwise 
be  extended  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  would, 
under  existing  circumstances,  be  unjust  in  itself,  and 
could  not  fail  to  excite  their  deepest  sensibility."  Mc 
Lane  was  also  to  allude  to  the  parts  taken  by  the  mem 
bers  of  Jackson's  administration  in  the  former  treat 
ment  of  the  question  under  discussion.  And  here 
Van  Buren  used  the  objectionable  sentence  which  led  to 
his  subsequent  rejection  by  the  senate  as  minister  to 
England,  and  which  through  that,  such  are  the  curious 
caprices  of  politics,  led,  or  at  least  helped  to  lead,  him  to 
the  presidency.  He  said,  "  Their  views  upon  that  point 
have  been  submitted  to  the  people  of  the  United  States ; 
and  the  counsels  by  which  your  conduct  is  now  directed 
are  the  result  of  the  judgment  expressed  by  the  only 
earthly  tribunal  to  which  the  late  administration  was 
amenable  for  its  acts." 

In  Van  Buren's  sagacious  desire  to  emphasize  the 
abandonment  of  claims  preventing  the  negotiation,  he 
here  introduced  to  a  foreign  nation  the  American  peo 
ple  as  a  judge  that  had  condemned  the  assertion  of  such 
claims  by  Jackson's  predecessor.  The  statement  was 
at  least  an  exaggeration.  There  was  little  reason  to 
suppose  that  Adams's  failure  in  the  negotiation  over 
colonial  trade  had  much,  if  at  all,  influenced  the  election 
of  1828.  Nor  was  it  dignified  officially  to  expose  our 
party  contests  to  foreign  eyes.  But  Van  Buren  was 
intent  upon  success  in  the  negotiation.  He  could  suc 
ceed  where  others  had  failed,  only  by  a  strong  asser 
tion  of  a  change  in  American  policy.  His  fault  was  at 
most  one  of  taste  in  the  manner  of  an  assertion  right 


SECRETARY  OF  STATE.  189 

enough  and  wise  enough  in  itself.  Nor  were  these 
celebrated  instructions  lacking  in  firmness  or  dignity. 
Great  Britain  was  clearly  warned  that  she  must  then 
decide  for  ah1  time  whether  the  hardships  from  which 
her  West  Indian  planters  suffered  should  continue  ;  and 
that  the  United  States  would  not  "  in  expiation  of  sup 
posed  past  encroachments  "  repeal  their  laws,  leaving 
themselves  "wholly  dependent  upon  the  indulgence 
of  Great  Britain,"  and  not  knowing  in  advance  what 
course  she  would  follow.  In  his  speech  in  the  senate 
in  February,  1827,  Van  Buren  had  clearly  stated  the 
general  positions  which  he  took  in  this  famous  despatch. 
It  is  rather  curious,  however,  that  he  found  occasion  then 
to  say  upon  this  very  subject  what  he  seemed  afterwards 
to  forget,  that  "  in  the  collisions  which  may  arise  be 
tween  the  United  States  and  a  foreign  power,  it  is  our 
duty  to  present  an  unbroken  front ;  domestic  differences, 
if  they  tend  to  give  encouragement  to  unjust  preten 
sions,  should  be  extinguished  or  deferred  ;  and  the  cause 
of  our  government  must  be  considered  as  the  cause  of 
our  country."  So  easy  it  is  to  advise  other  men  to  be 
bold  and  firm. 

McLane's  long  and  very  able  letter  to  the  British 
foreign  secretary  closely  followed  his  instructions.  Lord 
Aberdeen  was  frankly  told  that  the  United  States  had 
committed  "  mistakes "  hi  the  past ;  and  that  the 
"  American  pretensions  "  which  had  prevented  a  former 
arrangement  would  not  be  revived.  The  negotiation 
was  entirely  successful.  In  October,  1830,  the  president, 
with  the  authorization  of  Congress,  declared  American 
ports  open  to  British  vessels  and  their  cargoes  coming 
from  the  colonies,  and  that  they  should  be  subject  to 
the  same  charges  as  American  vessels  coming  from 


190  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  same  colonies.  In  November  a  British  order  in 
council  gave  to  American  vessels  corresponding  privi 
leges.  On  January  3,  1831,  Jackson  sent  to  the  senate 
the  papers,  including  Van  Buren's  letter  of  instructions. 
No  criticism  was  made  upon  their  tenor ;  and  the 
public,  heedless  of  the  phrases  used  in  reaching  the  end, 
rejoiced  in  a  most  beneficent  opening  of  commerce. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MINISTER    TO     ENGLAND. VICE-PRESIDENT. ELECTION 

TO   THE    PRESIDENCY. 

IN  the  summer  of  1831  Van  Buren  knew  very  well 
the  strong  hold  he  had  upon  his  party,  the  entire  and 
almost  affectionate  confidence  which  he  enjoyed  from 
Jackson,  and  the  prestige  which  his  political  and  offi 
cial  success  had  brought  him.  But  to  the  country,  as 
he  was  well  aware,  he  seemed  also  to  be,  as  he  was,  a 
politician,  obviously  skilled  in  the  art,  and  an  avowed 
candidate  for  the  presidency.  His  conciliatory  bearing, 
his  abstinence  from  personal  abuse,  his  freedom  from 
personal  animosities,  all  were  widely  declared  to  be  the 
mere  incidents  of  constant  duplicity  and  intrigue.  The 
absence  of  proof,  and  his  own  explicit  denial  and  appeal 
to  those  who  knew  the  facts,  did  not  protect  him  from 
the  belief  of  his  adversaries  —  a  belief  which,  without 
examination,  has  since  been  widely  adopted  —  that  to 
prostrate  a  dangerous  rival  he  had  promoted  the  quarrel 
between  Jackson  and  Calhoun.  McLane,  the  minister 
at  London,  wished  to  come  home,  and  was  to  be  the 
new  secretary  of  the  treasury.  Van  Buren  gladly  seized 
the  opportunity.  He  would  leave  the  field  of  political 
management.  Three  thousand  miles  in  distance  and  a 
month  in  time  away  from  Washington  or  New  York, 
there  could,  he  thought,  be  little  pretense  of  personal 
manoeuvres  on  his  part.  He  would  thus  plainly  submit 


192  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

his  candidacy  to  popular  judgment  upon  his  public 
career,  without  interference  from  himself.  He  would 
escape  the  many  embarrassments  of  every  politician 
upon  whom  demands  are  continually  made,  —  demands 
whose  rejection  or  allowance  alike  brings  offense.  The 
English  mission  was  prominently  in  the  public  service, 
but  out  of  its  difficulties ;  and  it  was  made  particularly 
grateful  to  him  by  his  success  in  the  recent  negotiation 
over  colonial  trade.  He  therefore  accepted  the  post, 
for  which  in  almost  every  respect  he  had  extraordinary 
equipment.  He  finally  left  the  state  department  in 
June,  1831 ;  and  on  his  departure  from  Washington 
Jackson  conspicuously  rode  with  him  out  of  the  city. 
On  August  1st,  he  was  formally  appointed  minister  to 
Great  Britain ;  and  in  September  he  arrived  in  London, 
accompanied  by  his  son  John. 

Van  Buren  found  Washington  Irving  presiding  over 
the  London  legation  in  McLane's  absence  as  charge 
d'affaires.  Irving's  appointment  to  be  secretary  of  lega 
tion  under  McLane  had  been  one  of  Van  Buren's  early 
acts,  —  a  proof,  Irving  wrote,  "  of  the  odd  way  in  which 
this  mad  world  is  governed,  when  a  secretary  of  state  of 
a  stern  republic  gives  away  offices  of  the  kind  at  the  rec 
ommendation  of  a  jovial  little  man  of  the  seas  like  Jack 
Nicholson."  But  this  was  jocose.  When  the  appoint 
ment  was  suggested,  it  was  particularly  pleasant  to  Van 
Buren  that  this  graceful  and  gentle  bit  of  patronage 
should  be  given  by  so  grim  a  figure  as  Jackson.  Irving 
had  come  on  from  Spain,  his  "  Columbus  "  just  finished, 
and  his  "  Alhambra  Tales  "  ready  for  writing.  His  ex 
traordinary  popularity  in  England  and  his  old  familiarity 
with  its  life  made  him  highly  useful  to  the  American 
minister,  as  Van  Buren  himself  soon  found.  It  was  not 


MINISTER  TO  ENGLAND.  193 

the  last  time  that  Englishmen  respected  the  republic  of 
the  west  the  more  because  the  respect  carried  with  it  an 
homage  to  the  republic  of  letters.  Irving's  was  an  early 
one  of  the  appointments  which  established  the  agreeable 
tradition  of  the  American  diplomatic  and  consular  ser 
vice,  that  literary  men  should  always  hold  some  of  its 
places  of  honor  and  profit.  When  Van  Buren  arrived, 
Irving  was  already  weary  of  his  post  and  had  resigned. 
He  remained,  however,  with  the  new  minister  until  he 
too  surrendered  his  office.  The  two  men  became  warm 
and  lifelong  friends.  The  day  after  Van  Buren's  ar 
rival  Irving  wrote  :  "I  have  just  seen  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
and  do  not  wonder  you  should  all  be  so  fond  of  him. 
His  manners  are  most  amiable  and  ingratiating ;  and  I 
have  no  doubt  he  will  become  a  favorite  at  this  court." 
After  an  intimacy  of  several  months  he  wrote  :  "  The 
more  I  see  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  the  more  I  feel  confirmed 
in  a  strong  personal  regard  for  him.  He  is  one  of  the 
gentlest  and  most  amiable  men  I  have  ever  met  with ; 
with  an  affectionate  disposition  that  attaches  itself  to 
those  around  him,  and  wins  their  kindness  in  return." 

After  a  few  months  of  the  charming  life  which  an 
American  of  distinction  finds  open  to  him  in  London,  a 
life  for  whose  duties  and  whose  pleasures  Van  Buren 
was  happily  fitted,1  there  came  to  him  an  extraordinary 
and  enviable  delight.  He  posted  through  England  in  an 
open  carriage  with  the  author  of  the  "  Sketch  Book  "  and 
"  Bracebridge  Hall."  From  those  daintiest  sources  he 

1  A  month  or  two  after  his  arrival  Van  Buren  wrote  Hamilton 
that  his  place  was  decidedly  the  most  agreeable  he  had  ever  held, 
but  added  :  "Money  —  money  is  the  thing."  His  house  was 
splendid  and  in  a  delightful  situation  ;  but  it  cost  him  £500.  His 
carriage  cost  him  £310,  and  his  servants  with  their  board  $2,600. 


194  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

had  years  before  got  an  idea  of  English  country  life,  and 
of  the  festivities  of  an  old-fashioned  English  Christmas ; 
and  now  in  an  exquisite  companionship  the  idea  became 
more  nearly  clothed  with  reality  than  happens  with  most 
literary  enchantments.  After  Oxford  and  Blenheim  ; 
after  quartering  in  Stratford  at  the  little  inn  of  the  Red 
Horse,  where  they  "  found  the  same  obliging  little  land 
lady  that  kept  it  at  the  time  of  the  visit  recorded  in  the 
4  Sketch  Book  ' ;  "  after  Warwick  Castle  and  Kenilworth 
and  Lichfield  and  Newstead  Abbey  and  Hardwick 
Castle  ;  after  a  fortnight  at  Christmas  in  Barlborough 
Hall,  —  "a  complete  scene  of  old  English  hospitality," 
with  many  of  the  ancient  games  and  customs  then  obso 
lete  in  other  parts  of  England ;  after  seeing  there  the 
"  mummers  and  morris  dancers  and  glee  singers  ;  "  after 
"  great  feasting  with  the  boar's-head  crowned  with  holly, 
the  wassail  bowl,  the  yule-log,  snapdragon,  etc. ; "  —  after 
all  these  delights,  inimitably  told  by  his  companion,  Van 
Buren  returned  to  London,  but  not  for  long.  He  there 
enjoyed  the  halcyon  days  which  the  brilliant  society  of 
London  knew,  when  George  IV.  had  just  left  the  throne 
to  his  undignified  but  good-hearted  and  jovial  brother  ; 
when  Louis  Philippe  had  found  a  bourgeois  crown  in 
France  and  the  condescending  approval  of  England ; 
when  Wellington  was  the  first  of  Englishmen  ;  when 
Prince  Talleyrand,  his  early  republicanism  and  sacri 
leges  not  at  all  forgotten,  but  forgiven  to  the  prestige  of 
his  abilities  and  the  splendid  fascinations  of  his  society, 
was  the  chief  person  in  diplomatic  life  ;  when  the  Wizard 
of  the  North,  though  broken,  and  on  his  last  and  vain 
trip  to  the  Mediterranean  for  health,  still  lingered  in 
London,  one  of  its  grand  figures,  and  sadly  recalled  to 
Irving  the  times  when  they  ';  went  over  the  Eildon  hills 


MINISTER  TO  ENGLAND.  195 

together ;  "  when  Rogers  was  playing  Maecenas  and 
Catullus  at  breakfast-tables  of  poets  and  bankers  and 
noblemen.  It  was  amid  this  serene,  shining,  and  magical 
translation  from  the  politics  at  home  that  Van  Buren 
received  the  rude  and  humiliating  news  of  his  rejection 
by  the  senate ;  for  his  appointment  had  been  made  in 
recess,  and  he  had  left  without  a  confirmation. 

One  evening  in  February,  1832,  before  attending  a 
party  at  Talleyrand's,  Van  Buren  learned  of  the  rejec 
tion,  as  had  all  London  which  knew  there  was  an  Amer 
ican  minister.  He  was  half  ill  when  the  news  came ; 
but  he  seemed  imperturbable.  Without  shrinking  he 
mixed  in  the  splendid  throng,  gracious  and  easy,  as 
if  he  did  not  know  that  his  official  heart  would  soon 
cease  to  beat.  Lord  Auckland,  then  president  of  the 
board  of  trade  and  afterwards  governor-general  of  India, 
said  to  him  very  truly,  and  more  prophetically  than  he 
fancied :  "  It  is  an  advantage  to  a  public  man  to  be  the 
subject  of  an  outrage."  Levees  and  drawing-rooms  and 
state  dinners  were  being  held  in  honor  of  the  queen's 
birthday.  After  a  doubt  as  to  the  more  decorous  course, 
he  kept  the  tenor  of  diplomatic  life  until  he  ceased  to  be 
a  minister  ;  and  Irving  said  that,  "  to  the  credit  of  John 
Bull,"  he  "  was  universally  received  with  the  most 
marked  attention,"  and  "  treated  with  more  respect  and 
attention  than  before  by  the  royal  family,  by  the  mem 
bers  of  the  present  and  the  old  cabinet,  and  the  different 
persons  of  the  diplomatic  corps."  On  March  22,  1832, 
he  had  his  audience  of  leave ;  two  days  later  he  dined 
with  the  king  at  Windsor ;  and  about  April  1st  left  for 
Holland  and  a  continental  trip,  this  being,  so  he  wrote 
a  committee  appointed  at  an  indignation  meeting  in 
Tammany  Hall,  "  the  only  opportunity "  he  should 
probably  ever  have  for  the  visit. 


196  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Van  Buren's  despatches  from  England,  now  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  the  state  department,  are  not  nu 
merous.  They  were  evidently  written  by  a  minister 
who  was  not  very  busy  in  official  duties  apart  from  the 
social  and  ceremonial  life  of  a  diplomat.  Some  of 
them  are  in  his  own  handwriting,  whose  straggling 
carelessness  is  quite  out  of  keeping  with  the  obvious 
pains  which  he  bestowed  upon  every  subject  he  touched, 
even  those  of  seemingly  slight  consequence.  Inter 
spersed  with  allusions  to  the  northeastern  boundary  ques 
tion,  and  with  accounts  of  his  protests  against  abuses 
practiced  upon  American  ships  in  British  ports,  and  of 
the  spread  of  the  cholera,  he  gave  English  political 
news  and  even  gossip.  He  discussed  the  chances  of  the 
reform  bill,  rumors  of  what  the  ministry  would  do,  and 
whether  the  Duke  of  Wellington  would  yield.  Van 
Buren  participated  in  no  important  dispute,  although 
before  surrendering  his  post  he  presented  one  of  the 
hateful  claims  which  American  administrations  of  both 
parties  had  to  make  in  those  days.  This  was  the  de 
mand  for  slaves  who  escaped  from  the  American  brig 
"  Comet,"  wrecked  in  the  Bahamas,  on  her  way  from 
the  Potomac  to  New  Orleans,  and  who  were  declared 
free  by  the  colonial  authorities. 

It  is  safe  to  believe  that  Secretary  Livingston  read 
the  more  interesting  of  these  letters  at  the  White  House. 
Van  Buren  discreetly  lightened  up  some  of  the  diplomatic 
pages  with  passages  very  agreeable  to  Jackson.  In 
describing  his  presentation  to  William  IV.,  he  told 
Livingston  that  the  king  had  formed  the  highest  esti 
mate  of  Jackson's  character,  and  repeated  the  royal 
remark  "  that  detraction  and  misrepresentation  were 
the  common  lot  of  all  public  men."  Of  the  president's 


REJECTION  BY  THE  SENATE.  197 

message  of  December,  1831,  he  wrote  that  few  in  Eng 
land  refused  to  recognize  its  ability  or  the  "distin 
guished  talents  of  the  executive  by  whose  advice  and 
labors  "  the  affairs  "  of  our  highly  favored  country  " 
had  been  "  conducted  to  such  happy  results." 

On  July  5,  1832,  Van  Buren  arrived  at  New  York, 
having  several  weeks  before  been  nominated  for  the 
vice-presidency.  He  declined  a  public  reception,  he 
said,  because,  afflicted  as  New  York  was  with  the  chol 
era,  festivities  would  be  discordant  with  the  feelings  of 
his  friends ;  and  a  few  days  later  he  was  in  Washing 
ton.  Congress  was  in  session,  debating  the  tariff  bill ; 
and  he  quickly  enough  found  it  true,  as  he  had  already 
believed,  that  his  rejection  had  been  a  capital  blunder 
of  his  enemies.  The  rejection  occurred  on  January  25, 
1832.  Jackson's  nomination  had  gone  to  the  senate 
early  in  December,  but  the  opposition  had  hesitated  at 
the  responsibility  for  the  affront.  The  debate  took  place 
in  secret  session,  but  the  speeches  were  promptly  made 
public  for  their  effect  on  the  country.  Clay  and  Web 
ster,  the  great  leaders  of  the  Whigs,  and  Hayne,  the 
eloquent  representative  of  the  Calhoun  Democracy,  and 
others,  spoke  against  Van  Buren.  Clay  and  Webster 
based  their  rejection  upon  his  language  in  the  despatch 
to  McLane,  already  quoted.  Webster  said  that  he 
would  pardon  almost  anything  where  he  saw  true  patri 
otism  and  sound  American  feeling ,-  but  he  could  not 
forgive  the  sacrifice  of  these  to  party.  Van  Buren, 
with  sensible  and  skillful  foresight,  had  frankly  admit 
ted  that  we  had  been  wrong  in  some  of  our  claims  ;  and 
Gallatin,  it  was  afterwards  shown  from  his  original 
despatch  to  Clay,  had  expressly  said  the  same  thing. 
But  in  a  bit  of  buncombe  Webster  insisted  that  no 


198  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

American  minister  must  ever  admit  that  his  country 
had  been  wrong.  "  In  the  presence  of  foreign  courts,'1 
he  solemnly  said,  "  amidst  the  monarchies  of  Europe, 
he  is  to  stand  up  for  his  country  and  his  whole  country ; 
that  no  jot  nor  tittle  of  her  honor  is  to  suffer  in  his 
hands ;  that  he  is  not  to  allow  others  to  reproach  either 
his  government  or  his  country,  and  far  less  is  he  him 
self  to  reproach  either  ;  that  he  is  to  have  no  objects  in 
his  eye  but  American  objects,  and  no  heart  in  his  bosom 
but  an  American  heart."  To  say  all  this,  Webster  de 
clared,  was  a  duty  whose  performance  he  wished  might 
be  heard  "  by  every  independent  freeman  in  the  United 
States,  by  the  British  minister  and  the  British  king,  and 
every  minister  and  every  crowned  head  in  Europe."  Van 
Buren's  language,  Clay  said,  had  been  that  of  an  hum 
ble  vassal  to  a  proud  and  haughty  lord,  prostrating  and 
degrading  the  American  eagle  before  the  British  lion. 
These  cheap  appeals  fell  perfectly  flat.  If  Van  Buren 
had  been  open  to  criticism  for  the  manner  in  which  he 
pointed  out  a  party  change  in  American  administration, 
the  error  was,  at  the  worst,  committed  to  preclude  a 
British  refusal  from  finding  justification  in  the  offensive 
attitude  previously  taken  by  Adams.  In  admitting  our 
mistaken  "  pretensions,"  Van  Buren  had  been  entirely 
right,  barring  a  slight  fault  in  the  word,  which  did  not, 
however,  then  seem  to  import  the  consciousness  of 
wrong  which  it  carries  to  later  ears.  Webster  and  Clay 
ought  to  have  known  that  Van  Buren's  success  where 
all  before  had  failed  would  make  the  American  people 
loath  to  find  fault  with  his  phrases.  Nor  were  they  at 
all  ready  to  believe  that  Jackson's  administration  toadied 
to  foreign  courts.  They  knew  better  ;  they  were  con 
vinced  that  no  American  president  had  been  more  reso 
lute  towards  other  nations. 


REJECTION  BY  THE  SENATE.  199 

It  was  also  said  that  Van  Buren  had  introduced  the 
system  of  driving  men  from  office  for  political  opinions ; 
that  he  was  a  New  York  politician  who  had  brought  his 
art  to  Washington.  Marcy,  one  of  the  New  York  sen 
ators,  defended  his  state  with  these  words,  which  after 
wards  he  must  have  wished  to  recall :  "It  may  be,  sir, 
that  the  politicians  of  New  York  are  not  so  fastidious  as 
some  gentlemen  are  as  to  disclosing  the  principles  on 
which  they  act.  They  boldly  preach  what  they  practice. 
Wh£h  they  are  contending  for  victory  they  avow  their 
intention  of  enjoying  the  fruits  of  it.  If  they  are  de 
feated,  they  expect  to  retire  from  office  ;  if  they  are 
successful,  they  claim,  as  a  matter  of  right,  the  advan 
tages  of  success.  They  see  nothing  wrong  in  the  rule 
that  to  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy."  To 
this  celebrated  and  execrable  defense  Van  Buren  owes 
much  of  the  later  and  unjust  belief  that  he  was  an 
inveterate  "  spoilsman."  It  has  already  been  shown 
how  little  foundation  there  is  for  the  charge  that  he  in 
troduced  the  system  of  official  proscription.  Benton 
truly  said  that  Van  Buren's  temper  and  judgment  were 
both  against  it,  and  that  he  gave  ample  proofs  of  his 
forbearance.  Webster  did  not  touch  upon  this  objec 
tion.  Clay  made  it  very  subordinate  to  the  secretary's 
abasement  before  the  British  lion. 

The  attack  of  the  Calhoun  men  was  based  upon  Van 
Buren's  supposed  intrigue  against  their  chief,  and  his 
breaking  up  of  the  cabinet.  But  people  saw  then,  better 
indeed  than  some  historians  have  since  seen,  that  be 
tween  Calhoun  and  Van  Buren  there  had  been  great 
and  radical  political  divergence  far  deeper  than  per 
sonal  jealousy.  To  surrender  the  highest  cabinet  office, 
to  leave  Washington  and  all  the  places  of  political  man- 


200  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ageraent,  in  order  to  take  a  lower  office  in  remote  exile 
from  the  sources  of  political  power,  —  these  were  not  be 
lieved  to  be  acts  of  mere  trickery,  but  rather  to  be  parts 
of  a  courageous  and  self-respecting  appeal  for  justice. 
It  seemed  a  piece  of  political  animosity  wantonly  to 
punish  a  rival  with  such  exquisite  humiliation  in  the  eyes 
of  foreigners. 

There  was  a  clear  majority  against  confirming  Van 
Buren.  But  to  make  his  destruction  the  more  signal, 
and  as  Calhoun  had  no  opportunity  to  speak,  enough  of 
the  majority  refrained  from  voting  to  enable  the  Demo 
cratic  vice-president  to  give  the  casting  vote  for  the  rejec 
tion  of  this  Democratic  nominee.  Calhoun's  motive 
was  obvious  enough  from  his  boast  in  Benton's  hearing  : 
"It  will  kill  him,  sir,  kill  him  dead.  He  will  never 
kick,  sir,  never  kick."  This  bit  of  unaffected  nature 
was  refreshing  after  all  the  solemnly  insincere  declara 
tions  of  grief  which  had  fallen  from  the  opposition  sena 
tors  in  performing  their  duty. 

The  folly  of  the  rejection  was  quickly  apparent.  Ben- 
ton  very  well  said  to  Moore,  a  senator  from  Alabama 
who  had  voted  against  Van  Buren,  "  You  have  broken 
a  minister  and  elected  a  vice-president.  The  people 
will  see  nothing  in  it  but  a  combination  of  rivals  against 
a  competitor."  The  popular  verdict  was  promptly 
given.  Van  Buren  had  already  become  a  candidate  to 
succeed  Jackson  five  years  later ;  he  was  only  a  pos 
sible  candidate  for  vice-president  at  the  next  election. 
When  the  rejection  was  widely  known,  it  was  known 
almost  equally  well  and  soon  that  Van  Buren  would  be 
the  Jacksonian  candidate  for  vice-president.  Meetings 
were  held  ;  addresses  were  voted ;  the  issue  was  eagerly 
seized.  The  Democratic  members  of  the  New  York 


REJECTION  BY  THE  SENATE.  201 

legislature  early  in  February,  1832,  under  an  inspiration 
from  Washington,  addressed  to  Jackson  an  expression  of 
their  indignation  in  the  stately  words  which  our  fathers 
loved,  even  when  they  went  dangerously  near  to  bathos. 
They  had  freely,  they  said,  surrendered  to  his  call  their 
most  distinguished  fellow-citizen  ;  when  Van  Buren  had 
withdrawn  from  the  cabinet  they  had  beheld  in  Jack 
son's  continual  confidence  in  him  •  irrefragable  proof 
that  no  combination  could  close  Jackson's  eyes  to  the 
cause  of  his  country ;  New  York  would  indeed  avenge 
the  indignity  thus  offered  to  her  favorite  son  ;  but  they 
would  be  unmindful  of  their  duty  if  they  failed  to  console 
Jackson  with  their  sympathy  in  this  degradation  of  the 
country  he  loved  so  well.  On  February  28th,  Jackson 
replied  with  no  less  dignity  and  with  skill  and  force. 
He  was,  he  said,  —  and  the  whole  country  believed  him, 
—  incapable  of  tarnishing  the  pride  or  dignity  of  that 
country  whose  glory  it  had  been  his  object  to  elevate  ; 
Van  Buren's  instructions  to  McLane  had  been  his 
instructions ;  American  pretensions  which  Adams's  ad 
ministration  had  admitted  to  be  untenable  had  been 
resigned  ;  if  just  American  claims  were  resisted  upon 
the  ground  of  the  unjust  position  taken  by  his  predeces 
sor,  then  and  then  only  was  McLane  to  point  out  that 
there  had  been  a  change  in  the  policy  and  counsels  of 
the  government  with  the  change  of  its  officers.  Jack 
son  said  that  he  owed  it  to  the  late  secretary  of  state 
and  to  the  American  people  to  declare  that  Van  Buren 
had  no  participation  whatever  in  the  occurrences  between 
Calhoun  and  himself ;  and  that  there  was  no  ground 
for  imputing  to  Van  Buren  advice  to  make  the  removals 
from  office.  He  had  called  Van  Buren  to  the  state 
department  not  more  for  his  acknowledged  talents  and 


202  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

public  services  than  to  meet  the  general  wish  and 
expectation  of  the  Republican  party  ;  his  signal  ability 
and  success  in  office  had  fully  justified  the  selection  ; 
his  own  respect  for  Van  Buren's  great  public  and  pri 
vate  worth,  and  his  full  confidence  in  his  integrity  were 
undiminished.  This  blast  from  the  unquestioned  head 
of  the  party  prodigiously  helped  the  general  movement. 
The  only  question  was  how  best  to  avenge  the  wrong. 

It  was  suggested  that  Van  Buren  should  return 
directly  and  take  a  seat  in  the  senate,  which  Dudley 
would  willingly  surrender  to  him,  and  should  there  meet 
his  slanderers  face  to  face.  Some  thought  that  he 
should  have  a  triumphal  entry  into  New  York,  without 
an  idea  of  going  into  the  "  senatorial  cock-pit  "  unless 
he  were  not  to  receive  the  vice-presidency.  Others 
thought  that  he  should  be  made  governor  of  New  York, 
an  idea  shadowed  forth  in  the  Albany  address  to  Jack 
son.'  As  a  candidate  for  that  place,  he  would  escape 
the  jealousies  of  Pennsylvania  and  perhaps  Virginia, 
and  augment  the  local  strength  of  the  party  in  New 
York.  To  this  it  was  replied  from  Washington  that 
they  might  better  cut  his  throat  at  once  ;  that  if  the 
Republican  party  could  not,  under  existing  circum 
stances,  make  Van  Buren  vice-president,  they  need  never 
look  to  the  presidency  for  him.  This  was  declared  to 
be  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  cabinet.  New  York 
Republicans  were  begged  not  to  "  lose  so  glorious  an  op 
portunity  of  strengthening  and  consolidating  the  party." 
The  people  at  Albany,  it  was  said,  were  "  mad,  ...  as 
if  New  York  can  make  amends  for  an  insult  offered  by 
fourteen  states  of  the  Union." 

In  this  temper  the  Republican  or  Democratic  con 
tention  met  at  Baltimore  on  May  21,  1832.  It  was  the 


NOMINATED  FOR   VICE-PRESIDENT.         203 

first  national  gathering  of  the  party;  and  was  summoned 
simply  to  nominate  a  vice-president.  Jackson's  renomi- 
nation  was  already  made  by  the  sovereign  people,  which 
might  be  justly  affronted  by  the  assembling  of  a  body 
in  apparent  doubt  whether  to  obey  the  popular  decree. 
National  conventions  were  inevitable  upon  the  failure 
of  the  congressional  caucus  in  1824.  The  system  of 
separate  nominations  in  different  states  at  irregular 
times  was  too  inconvenient,  too  inconsistent  with  unity 
of  action  and  a  central  survey  of  the  whole  situation. 
In  1824  its  inconvenience  had  been  obvious  enough. 
In  1828  circumstances  had  designated  both  the  candi 
dates  with  perfect  certainty  ;  and  isolated  nominations 
in  different  parts  of  the  country  were  then  in  no  danger 
of  clashing.  It  has  been  recently  said  that  the  conven 
tion  of  1832  was  assembled  to  force  Van  Buren's 
nomination  for  vice-president.  But  it  is  evident  from 
the  letter  which  Parton  prints,  written  by  Lewis  to  Ken 
dall  on  May  25,  1831,  when  the  latter  was  visiting 
Isaac  Hill,  the  Jacksonian  leader  in  New  Hampshire, 
that  the  convention  was  even  then  proposed  by  "  the 
most  judicious  "  friends  of  the  administration.  It  was 
suggested  as  a  plan  "  of  putting  a  stop  to  partial  nomi 
nations  "  and  of  "  harmonizing  "  the  party.  Barbour, 
Dickinson  and  McLane  were  the  candidates  discussed 
in  this  letter  ;  Van  Buren  was  not  named.  He  was  about 
sailing  for  England ;  and  although  an  open  candidate 
for  the  presidential  succession  after  Jackson,  he  was  not 
then  a  candidate  for  the  second  office.  The  ascription 
of  the  convention  to  management  in  his  behalf  seems 
purely  gratuitous.  Upon  this  early  invitation,  the  New 
Hampshire  Democrats  called  the  convention.  One  of 
them  opened  its  session  by  a  brief  speech  alluding  to 


204  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  favor  with  which   the   idea  of  the   convention  had 
met,  "  although  opposed  by  the  enemies  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party,"  as  the  Republican  party  headed  by  Jack 
son  was   now  perhaps   first  definitely  called.     He  said 
that  "  the  coming  together  of  representatives  of  the  peo 
ple  from  the  extremity  of  the  Union  would  have  a  ten 
dency  to  soothe,  if  not  to   unite,  the  jarring  interests  ;  " 
and  that  the  people,  after  seeing  its  good  effects  in  con 
ciliating  the  different  and  distant  sections  of  the  coun 
try,    would  continue   the   mode   of    nomination.       This 
natural  and  sensible  motive  to   strengthen  and  solidify 
the  party  is  ample  explanation  of   the  convention,  with 
out  resorting  to  the  rather  worn  charge  brought  against 
so  many    political   movements    of  the  time,    that  they 
arose  from  Jackson's  dictatorial  desire  to   throttle  the 
sentiment  of  his  party.      In  making  nominations   the 
convention  resolved  that  each  state  should  have  as  many 
votes  as  it  would  be  entitled  to  in  the  electoral  college. 
To  assure  what  was  deemed  a  reasonable  approach  to 
unanimity,  two  thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  votes  was 
required  for  a  choice,  —  a  precedent  sad  enough  to  Van 
Buren  twelve  years  later.    On  the  first  ballot  Van  Buren 
had  208  of  the  283  votes.     Virginia,  South  Carolina, 
Indiana,   and  Kentucky,  with  a  few  votes  from  North 
Carolina,  Alabama,  and  Illinois,  were  for  Philip  P.  Bar- 
bour  of  Virginia  or  Richard  M.  Johnson  of  Kentucky. 
The   motion,   nowadays   immediately   made,   that    the 
nomination  be  unanimous  was  not  offered  ;  but  after  an 
adjournment  a  resolution  was  adopted  that  inasmuch  as 
Van  Buren  had  received  the  votes  of  two  thirds  of  the 
delegates,  the  convention  unanimously  concur  "  in  recom 
mending  him  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  for  their 
support." 


NOMINATED  FOR    VICE-PRESIDENT.  205 

No  platform  was  adopted.  A  committee  was  appoint 
ed  after  the  nomination  to  draft  an  address ;  but  after 
a  night's  work  they  reported  that,  although  "  agreeing 
fully  in  the  principles  and  sentiments  which  they  believe 
ought  to  be  embodied  in  an  address  of  this  description, 
if  such  an  address  were  to  be  made,"  it  still  seemed 
better  to  them  that  the  convention  recommend  the 
several  delegations  "  to  make  such  explanations  by 
address,  report,  or  otherwise  to  their  respective  constitu 
ents  of  the  objects,  proceedings,  and  result  of  the  meet 
ing  as  they  may  deem  expedient."  This  was  a  franker 
intimation  than  those  to  which  we  are  now  used,  that 
the  battle  was  to  be  fought  in  each  state  upon  the  issue 
best  suited  to  its  local  sentiments ;  and  was  entitled  to 
quite  as  much  respect  as  meaningless  platitudes  adopted 
lest  one  state  or  another  be  offended  at  something 
explicit.  Jackson's  firm  and  successful  foreign  policy, 
his  opposition  to  internal  improvements  by  the  federal 
government,  his  strong  stand  against  nullification,  his 
opposition  to  the  United  States  Bank,  —  from  the  battle 
over  whose  rechartering,  precipitated  by  Clay  early  in 
1832  to  embarrass  Jackson,  the  latter  had  not  shrunk, 
—  and  above  all  Jackson  himself,  these  were  the  real 
planks  of  the  platform.  But  the  party  wanted  the  votes 
of  Pennsylvania  Jacksonians  who  believed  in  the  Bank 
and  of  western  Jacksonians  who  wished  federal  aid  for 
roads  and  canals.  The  great  tariff  debate  was  then 
going  on  in  Congress  ;  and  the  subject  seemed  full  of 
danger.  The  election  was  like  the  usual  English  can 
vass  on  a  parliamentary  dissolution.  The  country  was 
merely  asked  without  specifications  :  Do  you  on  the  whole 
like  Jackson's  administration  ? 

There   is   no    real   ground  for  the  supposition  that 


206  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

intrigue  or  coercion  was  necessary  to  procure  Van 
Buren's  nomination.  It  was  dictated  by  the  simplest 
and  plainest  political  considerations.  Calhoun  was  in 
opposition.  After  Jackson,  Van  Buren  was  clearly  the 
most  distinguished  and  the  ablest  member  of  the 
administration  party ;  he  had  rendered  it  services  of 
the  highest  order ;  he  was  very  popular  in  the  most 
important  state  of  New  York ;  he  was  abroad,  suffering 
from  what  Irving  at  the  time  truly  called  "  a  very  short 
sighted  and  mean-spirited  act  of  hostility."  The  affront 
had  aroused  a  general  feeling  which  would  enable  Van 
Buren  to  strengthen  the  ticket.  In  his  department  had 
been  performed  the  most  shining  achievements  of  the 
administration.  To  the  politicians  about  Jackson,  and 
very  shrewd  men  they  were,  Van  Buren's  succession  to 
Jackson  promised  a  firmer,  abler  continuance  of  the  ad 
ministration  than  that  of  any  other  public  man.  Could 
he  indeed  have  stayed  minister  to  England,  he  would  have 
continued  a  figure  of  the  first  distinction,  free  from  local 
and  temporary  animosities  and  embarrassments.  From 
that  post  he  might  perhaps,  as  did  a  later  Democratic 
statesman,  most  easily  have  ascended  to  the  presidency  ; 
the  vice-presidency  would  have  been  unnecessary  to  the 
final  promotion.  But  after  the  tremendous  affront 
dealt  him  by  Calhoun  and  Clay,  his  tame  return  to  pri 
vate  life  would  seem  fatal.  He  must  reenter  public  life. 
And  no  reentry,  it  was  plain,  could  be  so  striking  as  a 
popular  election  to  the  second  station  in  the  land,  nomi 
nal  though  it  was,  and  in  taking  it  to  displace  the  very 
enemy  who  had  been  finally  responsible  for  the  wrong 
done  him. 

A  month  after  his  return  Van  Buren  formally  accepted 
the  nomination.     The  committee  of  the  convention  had 


NOMINATED    FOR   VICE-PRESIDENT.          207 

assured  him  that  if  the  great  Republican  party  con 
tinued  faithful  to  its  principles,  there  was  every  reason 
to  congratulate  him  and  their  illustrious  president  that 
there  was  in  reserve  for  his  wounded  feelings  a  just  and 
certain  reparation.  Van  Buren  said  in  reply  that  previ 
ous  to  his  departure  from  the  United  States  his  name 
had  been  frequently  mentioned  for  the  vice-presidency  ; 
but  that  he  had  uniformly  declared  himself  altogether 
unwilling  to  be  considered  a  candidate,  and  that  to  his 
friends,  when  opportunity  offered,  he  had  given  the 
grounds  of  his  unwillingness.  All  this  was  strictly  true. 
He  had  become  a  candidate  for  the  presidential  succes 
sion  ;  and  honorable  absence  as  minister  to  England 
secured  a  better  preparation  than  presence  as  vice-presi 
dent  amidst  the  difficulties  and  suspicions  of  Washing 
ton.  But  his  position,  he  added,  had  since  that  period 
been  essentially  changed  by  the  circumstance  to  which 
the  committee  had  referred,  and  to  which,  with  some 
excess  of  modesty  he  said,  rather  than  to  any  superior 
fitness  on  his  part,  he  was  bound  to  ascribe  his  nomina 
tion.  He  gratefully  received  this  spontaneous  expres 
sion  of  confidence  and  friendship  from  the  delegated 
democracy  of  the  Union.  He  declared  it  to  be  fortu 
nate  for  the  country  that  its  public  affairs  were  under 
the  direction  of  one  who  had  an  early  and  inflexible 
devotion  to  republican  principles  and  a  moral  courage 
which  distinguished  him  from  all  others.  In  the  con 
viction,  he  said,  that  on  a  faithful  adherence  to  these 
principles  depended  the  stability  and  value  of  our  con 
federated  system,  he  humbly  hoped  lay  his  motive, 
rather  than  any  other,  for  accepting  the  nomination. 
This  rather  clumsy  affectation  of  humility  would  have 
been  more  disagreeable  had  it  not  been  closely  asso~ 


208  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ciated  with  firm  and  manly  expressions,  and  because  it 
was  so  common  a  formality  in  the  political  vernacular  of 
the  day.  In  treating  the  people  as  the  sovereign,  there 
were  adopted  some  of  the  rhetorical  extravagances  used 
by  attendants  upon  monarchs. 

On  October  4,  1832,  Van  Buren,  upon  an  interroga 
tion  by  a  committee  of  a  meeting  at  Shocco  Springs, 
North  Carolina,  wrote  a  letter  upon  the  tariff.  He  said 
that  he  believed  "  the  establishment  of  commercial  regu 
lations  with  a  view  to  the  encouragement  of  domestic 
products  to  be  within  the  constitutional  power  of  Con 
gress."  But  as  to  what  should  be  the  character  of  the 
tariff  he  indulged  in  the  generalities  of  a  man  who  has 
opinions  which  he  does  not  think  it  wise  or  timely  to 
exhibit.  He  did  not  wish  to  see  the  power  of  Congress 
exercised  with  "  oppressive  inequality "  or  "  for  the 
advantage  of  one  section  of  the  Union  at  the  expense  of 
another."  The  approaching  extinguishment  of  the 
national  debt  presented  an  opportunity  for  a  "  more 
equitable  adjustment  of  the  tariff,"  an  opportunity 
already  embraced  in  the  tariff  of  1832,  whose  spirit  as 
"  a  conciliatory  measure  "  he  trusted  would  be  cherished 
by  all  who  preferred  public  to  private  interests.  These 
vague  expressions  would  have  fitted  either  a  revenue 
reformer  or  an  extreme  protectionist.  Both  disbelieved, 
or  said  they  did,  in  oppression  and  inequality.  With  a 
bit  of  irony,  perhaps  unconscious,  he  added  that  he  had 
been  thus  "  explicit  "  in  the  statement  of  his  sentiments 
that  there  might  not  be  room  for  misapprehension  of 
his  views.  He  did,  however,  in  the  letter  approve  "  a 
reduction  of  the  revenue  to  the  wants  of  the  govern 
ment,"  and  "  a  preference  in  encouragement  given  to 
such  manufactures  as  are  essential  to  the  national 


NOMINATED  FOR    VICE-PRESIDENT.          209 

defense,  and  its  extension  to  others  in  proportion  as 
they  are  adapted  to  our  country  and  of  which  the  raw 
material  is  produced  by  ourselves."  The  last  phrase 
probably  hinted  at  Van  Buren's  position.  He  believed 
in  strictly  limiting  protective  duties,  although  he  had 
voted  for  the  tariff  of  1828.  But  he  told  Benton  that 
he  cast  this  vote  in  obedience  to  the  "  demos  krateo  " 
principle,  that  is,  because  his  state  required  it.  He  again 
spoke  strongly  against  the  policy  of  internal  improve 
ments,  and  the  "  scrambles  and  combinations  in  Con 
gress "  unavoidably  resulting  from  them.  He  was 
"  unreservedly  opposed  "  to  a  renewal  of  the  charter  of 
the  Bank,  and  equally  opposed  to  nullification,  which 
involved,  he  believed,  the  "certain  destruction  of  the 
confederacy." 

A  few  days  later  he  wrote  to  a  committee  of  "  demo 
cratic-republican  young  men "  in  New  York  of  the 
peculiar  hatred  and  contumely  visited  upon  him.  In 
vectives  against  other  men,  he  said,  were  at  times  sus 
pended  ;  but  he  had  never  enjoyed  a  moment's  respite 
since  his  first  entrance  into  public  life.  Many  distin 
guished  public  men  had,  he  added,  been  seriously 
injured  by  favors  from  the  press  ;  but  there  was  scarcely 
an  instance  in  which  the  objects  of  its  obloquy  had  not 
been  raised  in  public  estimation  in  exact  proportion  to 
the  intensity  and  duration  of  the  abuse. 

Both  the  letter  from  the  Baltimore  convention  and 
Van  Buren's  reply  alluded  to  "  diversity  of  sentiments 
and  interests,"  disagreements  "  as  to  measures  and 
men  "  among  the  Republicans.  The  secession  of  Cal- 
houn  and  the  bitter  hostility  of  his  friends  seriously 
weakened  the  party.  But  against  this  was  to  be  set  the 
Anti-Masonic  movement  which  drew  far  more  largely 


210  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

from  Jackson's  opponents  than  from  his  supporters,  for 
Jackson  was  a  Mason  of  a  high  degree.  This  strange 
agitation  had  now  spread  beyond  New  York,  and  se 
cured  the  support  of  really  able  men.  Judge  McLean 
of  the  Supreme  Court  desired  the  Anti-Masonic  nomina 
tion  ;  William  Wirt,  the  famous  and  accomplished  Vir 
ginian,  accepted  it.  John  Quincy  Adams  would  probably 
have  accepted  it,  had  it  been  tendered  him.  He  wrote 
in  his  diary  :  "  The  dissolution  of  the  Masonic  institu 
tion  in  the  United  States  I  believe  to  be  really  more 
important  to  us  and  our  posterity  than  the  question 
whether  Mr.  Clay  or  General  Jackson  shall  be  the  presi 
dent."  In  New  York  the  National  Republicans  or 
Whigs,  with  the  eager  and  silly  leaning  of  minority 
parties  to  political  absurdities  or  vagaries,  united  with 
the  Anti-Masons,  among  whom  William  H.  Seward  and 
Thurlow  Weed  had  become  influential.  In  1830  they 
had  supported  Francis  Granger,  the  Anti-Masonic  candi 
date  for  governor.  In  1832  the  Anti-Masons  in  New 
York  nominated  an  electoral  ticket  headed  by  Chan 
cellor  Kent,  whose  bitter,  narrow,  and  unintelligent  poli 
tics  were  in  singular  contrast  with  his  extraordinary  legal 
equipment  and  his  professional  and  literary  accomplish 
ments,  and  by  John  C.  Spencer,  lately  in  charge  of  the 
prosecution  of  Morgan's  abductors.  If  the  ticket  were 
successful,  its  votes  were  to  go  to  Wirt  or  Clay,  which 
ever  they  might  serve  to  elect.  Amos  Ellmaker  of 
Pennsylvania  was  the  Anti-Masonic  candidate  for  vice- 
president.  In  December,  1831,  Clay  had  been  nomi 
nated  for  president  with  the  loud  enthusiasm  which  poli 
ticians  often  mistake  for  widespread  conviction.  John 
Sergeant  of  Pennsylvania  was  the  candidate  for  vice- 
president.  The  Whig  convention  made  the  Bank  re- 


ELECTION  OF  1832.  211 

charter  the  issue.  The  very  ably  conducted  Young 
Men's  National  Republican  Convention,  held  at  Wash 
ington  in  May,  1832,  gave  Clay  a  noble  greeting,  made 
pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of  Washington  there  to  seal  their 
solemn  promises,  and  adopted  a  clear  and  brief  platform 
for  protection,  for  internal  improvements  by  the  federal 
government,  for  the  binding  force  upon  the  coordinate 
branches  of  the  government  of  the  Supreme  Court's  opin 
ions  as  to  constitutional  questions,  not  only  in  special 
cases  formally  adjudged,  but  upon  general  principles, 
and  against  the  manner  in  which  the  West  Indian  trade 
had  been  recovered.  They  declared  that  "  indiscrimi 
nate  removal  of  public  officers  for  a  mere  difference  of 
political  opinion  is  a  gross  abuse  of  power,  corrupting 
the  morals  and  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the  people 
of  this  country." 

Even  more  clearly  than  in  the  campaign  of  1828  was 
the  campaign  of  1832  a  legitimate  political  battle  upon 
plain  issues.  The  tariff  bill  of  1832,  supported  by  both 
parties  and  approved  by  Jackson,  prevented  the  question 
of  protection  from  being  an  issue,  however  ready  the 
Whigs  might  be,  and  however  unready  the  Democrats, 
to  give  commercial  restrictions  a  theoretical  approval. 
Except  on  the  "  spoils  "  question,  the  later  opinion  of 
the  United  States  has  sustained  the  attitude  of  Jackson's 
party  and  the  popular  verdict  of  1832.  The  verdict  was 
clear  enough.  In  spite  of  the  Anti-Masonic  fury,  the 
numerous  secessions  from  the  Jacksonian  ranks,  and 
some  alarming  journalistic  defections,  especially  of  the 
New  York  "  Courier  and  Enquirer  "  of  James  Watson 
Webb  and  Mordecai  M.  Noah,  the  people  of  the  United 
States  continued  to  believe  in  Jackson  and  the  principles 
for  which  he  stood.  Upon  the  popular  vote  Jackson  and 


212  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Van  Buren  received  687,502  votes  against  530,189  votes 
for  Clay  and  Wirt  combined,  a  popular  majority  over 
both  of  157,313.  In  1828  Jackson  had  had  647,276 
votes  and  Adams  508,064,  a  popular  majority  of  139,212. 
The  increase  in  Jackson's  popular  majority  over  two 
candidates  instead  of  one  was  particularly  significant  in 
the  north  and  east.  The  majority  in  New  York  rose 
from  5,350  to  13,601.  In  Maine  a  minority  of  6,806 
became  a  majority  of  6,087.  In  New  Hampshire  a 
minority  of  3,212  became  a  majority  of  6,476.  In  Mas 
sachusetts  a  minority  of  23,860  was  reduced  to  18,458. 
In  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  the  minorities  were 
reduced.  In  New  Jersey  a  minority  of  1,813  became  a 
majority  of  463.  The  electoral  vote  was  even  more 
heavily  against  Clay.  He  had  but  49  votes  to  Jackson's 
219.  Wirt  had  the  7  votes  of  Vermont,  while  South 
Carolina,  beginning  to  step  out  of  the  Union,  gave  its  11 
votes  to  John  Floyd  of  Virginia.  Clay  carried  only 
Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Delaware,  a 
part  of  Maryland,  and  his  own  affectionate  Kentucky. 
Van  Buren  received  for  vice-president  the  same  electoral 
vote  as  Jackson,  except  that  the  30  votes  of  Pennsyl 
vania  went  to  Wilkins,  a  Pennsylvanian.  Sergeant  had 
the  same  49  votes  as  Clay,  Ellmaker  the  7  votes  of  Ver 
mont,  and  Henry  Lee  of  Massachusetts  the  11  votes  of 
South  Carolina.1 

1  In  estimating1  the  popular  vote  in  1828,  Delaware  and  South 
Carolina  are  excluded,  their  electors  having-  been  chosen  by  the 
legislature.  In  Georgia  in  that  year  there  was  no  opposition  to 
Jackson.  In  1832  no  popular  vote  is  included  for  South  Carolina 
or  for  Alabama.  In  Mississippi  and  Missouri  there  was  no  oppo 
sition  to  Jackson.  In  1829,  upon  Van  Buren's  recommendation 
when  governor,  the  system  of  choosing  electors  by  districts,  which 
had  been  in  force  in  the  election  of  1838,  was  abolished ;  and 


VICE-PRESIDENT.  213 

This  popular  triumph  brought  great  glory  to  Jackson's 
second  inauguration.  The  glory  was  soon  afterwards 
made  greater  and  almost  universal  by  his  bold  attack 
upon  nullification,  and  by  the  vigorous  and  ringing  yet 
dignified  and  even  pathetic  proclamation  of  January, 
1833,  drafted  by  Edward  Livingston,  in  which  the  presi 
dent  commanded  obedience  to  the  law  and  entreated 
for  loyalty  to  the  Union.  It  could  not  be  overlooked  that 
the  treasonable  attitude  of  South  Carolina  had  been  taken 
by  the  portion  of  the  Democratic  party  hostile  to  Van 
Buren.  In  a  peculiar  way  therefore  he  shared  in  Jack 
son's  prestige. 

The  election  seemed  to  clarify  some  of  the  views  of 
the  administration.  They  now  dared  to  speak  more  ex 
plicitly.  On  his  way  to  the  inauguration,  Van  Buren, 
declining  a  dinner  at  Philadelphia,  recited  with  approval 
what  he  called  Jackson's  repeated  and  earnest  recom 
mendations  of  "  a  reduction  of  duties  to  the  revenue 
standard."  In  his  second  inaugural  Jackson  said  that 
there  should  be  exercised  "  by  the  general  government 
those  powers  only  that  are  clearly  delegated."  In  his 
message  of  December,  1833,  he  again  spoke  of  "  the  im 
portance  of  abstaining  from  all  appropriations  which  are 
not  absolutely  required  for  the  public  interests,  and 
authorized  by  the  powers  clearly  delegated  to  the  United 
States ;  "  and  this  he  said  with  the  more  emphasis  be 
cause  under  the  compromise  tariff  of  1833  a  large  de 
crease  in  revenue  was  anticipated. 

In  September,  1833,  was  announced  Jackson's  refusal 
longer  to  deposit  the  moneys  of  the  government  with 
the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  It  is  plain  that  the 

there  was  adopted  the  present  system  of  choosing  all  the  electors 
by  the  popular  vote  of  the  whole  state. 


214  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

dangers  of  the  proposed  deposits  of  the  moneys  in  the 
state  banks  were  not  appreciated.  Van  Buren  at  first 
opposed  this  so-called  "  removal  of  the  deposits."  Ken 
dall  tells  of  an  interview  with  the  vice-president  not  long 
after  his  inauguration,  and  while  he  was  a  guest  at  the 
White  House.  Van  Buren  then  warmly  remonstrated 
against  the  continued  agitation  of  the  subject,  after  the 
resolution  of  the  lower  house  at  the  last  session  that  the 
government  deposits  were  safe  with  the  banks.  Kendall 
replied  that  so  certain  to  his  mind  was  the  success  of  the 
Whig  party  at  the  next  presidential  election  and  the 
consequent  recharter  of  the  Bank,  unless  it  were  now 
stripped  of  the  power  which  the  charge  of  the  public 
moneys  gave  it,  that  if  the  Bank  were  to  retain  the  de 
posits  he  should  consider  further  opposition  useless  and 
would  lay  down  his  pen,  leaving  to  others  this  question 
and  all  other  politics.  "  I  can  live,"  he  said  to  the  vice- 
president,  "  under  a  corrupt  despotism  as  well  as  any 
other  man  by  keeping  out  of  its  way,  which  I  shall  cer 
tainly  do."  They  parted  in  excitement.  A  few  weeks 
later  Van  Buren  confessed  to  Kendall,  "  I  had  never 
thought  seriously  upon  the  deposit  question  until  after 
my  conversation  with  you  ;  I  am  now  satisfied  that  you 
were  right  and  I  was  wrong."  Kendall  was  sent  to 
ascertain  whether  suitable  state  banks  would  accept  the 
deposits,  and  on  what  terms.  While  in  New  York  Van 
Buren,  with  McLane  lately  transferred  from  the  treasury 
to  the  state  department,  called  on  him  and  proposed  that 
the  order  for  the  change  in  the  government  depositories 
should  take  effect  on  the  coming  first  of  January.  The 
date  being  a  month  after  the  meeting  of  Congress,  the 
executive  action  would  seem  less  defiant ;  and  in  the 
mean  time  the  friends  of  the  administration  could  be 


VICE-PRESIDENT.  215 

more  effectually  united  in  support  of  the  measure.  Ken 
dall  yielded  to  the  proposition  though  against  his  judg 
ment,  and  wrote  to  the  president  in  its  favor.  But  Jack 
son  would  not  yield.  Whether  or  not  its  first  inspiration 
came  from  Francis  P.  Blair  or  Kendall,  the  removal  of 
the  deposits  was  peculiarly  Jackson's  own  deed.  The 
government  moneys  should  not  be  left  in  the  hands  of 
the  chief  enemy  of  his  administration,  to  be  loaned  in  its 
discretion,  that  it  might  secure  doubtful  votes  in  Congress 
and  the  support  of  presses  pecuniarily  weak.  As  the 
Bank's  charter  would  expire  within  three  years,  it  was 
pointed  out  that  the  government  ought  to  prepare  for  it 
by  withholding  further  deposits  and  gradually  drawing 
out  the  moneys  then  on  deposit.  Van  Buren's  assent 
was  given,  but  probably  with  no  enthusiasm.  He  dis 
liked  the  Bank  heartily  enough.  The  corrupting  danger 
of  intrusting  government  moneys  to  a  single  private  cor 
poration  to  loan  in  its  discretion  was  clear.  But  a  sys 
tem  of  "  pet  banks  "  through  the  states  was  too  slight 
an  improvement,  if  an  improvement  at  all.  And  any 
change  would  at  least  offend  and  alarm  the  richer 
classes.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  effect  upon  the  re- 
charter  of  the  Bank  and  the  election  of  1836  its  continued 
possession  of  the  deposits  would  have  had.  Its  tremen 
dous  power  over  credits  doubtless  gave  it  many  votes  of 
administration  congressmen.  Possibly,  as  Jackson  and 
Blair  feared,  it  might  have  secured  enough  to  pass  a  re- 
charter  over  a  veto.  If  it  had  been  thus  rechartered,  it 
may  be  doubtful  whether  the  blow  to  the  prestige  of  the 
administration  might  not  have  been  serious  enough  to 
elect  a  Whig  in  1836.  But  it  is  not  doubtful  that  Van 
Buren,  and  not  Jackson,  was  compelled  to  face  the  politi 
cal  results  of  this  heroic  and  imperfect  measure. 


216  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Some  financial  disturbance  took  place  in  the  winter 
of  1833-1834,  which  was  ascribed  by  the  Whigs  to  the 
gradual  transfer  of  the  government  moneys  from  the 
United  States  Bank  and  its  numerous  branches  to  the 
state  banks.  For  political  effect,  this  disturbance  was 
greatly  exaggerated.  Deputations  visited  Washington 
to  bait  Jackson.  Memorial  after  memorial  enabled  con 
gressmen  to  make  friends  by  complimenting  the  enter 
prise  and  beauty  of  various  towns,  and  to  depict  the 
utter  misery  to  which  all  their  industries  had  been 
brought,  solely  by  a  gradual  transference  throughout 
the  United  States  of  $10,000,000,  from  one  set  of  depos 
itories  to  another.  The  removal,  Webster  said,  had 
produced  a  degree  of  evil  that  could  not  be  borne.  "  A 
tottering  state  of  credit,  cramped  means,  loss  of  property 
and  loss  of  employment,  doubts  of  the  condition  of  others, 
doubts  of  their  own  condition,  constant  fear  of  failures 
and  new  explosions,  and  awful  dread  of  the  future  " — 
all  these  evils,  "  without  hope  of  improvement  or  change," 
had  resulted  from  the  removal.  Clay  was  more  precise 
in  his  absurdity.  The  property  of  the  country  had  been 
reduced,  he  declared,  four  hundred  millions  in  value. 
Addressing  Van  Buren  in  the  vice-president's  chair,  he 
begged  him  in  a  burst  of  bathos  to  repair  to  the  execu 
tive  mansion  and  place  before  the  chief  magistrate  the 
naked  and  undisguised  truth.  "  Go  to  him,"  he  cried, 
"  and  tell  him  without  exaggeration,  but  in  the  language 
of  truth  and  sincerity,  the  actual  condition  of  this  bleed 
ing  country,  ...  of  the  tears  of  helpless  widows  no 
longer  able  to  earn  their  bread,  and  of  unclad  and 
unfed  orphans."  Van  Buren,  in  the  story  often  quoted 
from  Benton,  while  thus  apostrophized,  looked  respect 
fully  and  innocently  at  Clay,  as  if  treasuring  up  every 


VICE-PRESID.ENT.  217 

word  to  be  faithfully  borne  to  the  president ;  and  when 
Clay  had  finished,  he  called  a  senator  to  the  chair,  went 
up  to  the  eloquent  and  languishing  Kentuckian,  asked 
him  for  a  pinch  of  his  fine  maccoboy  snuff,  and  walked 
away.  But  this  frivolity  was  not  fancied  everywhere. 
At  a  meeting  in  Philadelphia  it  was  resolved  "  that 
Martin  Van  Buren  deserves  and  will  receive  the  execra 
tions  of  all  good  men,  should  he  shrink  from  the  respon 
sibility  of  conveying  to  Andrew  Jackson  the  message 
sent  by  the  honorable  Henry  Clay."  The  whole  agita 
tion  was  hollow  enough.  Jackson  was  not  far  wrong  in 
saying  in  his  letter  to  Hamilton  of  January  2,  1834 : 
"  There  is  no  real  general  distress.  It  is  only  with  those 
who  live  by  borrowing,  trade  on  loans,  and  the  gamblers 
in  stocks."  The  business  of  the  country  was  not  injured 
by  refusing  to  let  Nicholas  Biddle  and  his  subordinates, 
rather  than  other  men,  lend  for  gain  ten  millions  of 
government  money.  But  business  was  soon  to  be  injured 
by  permitting  the  state  banks  to  do  the  same  thing. 
The  change  did  not,  as  Jackson  thought,  "  leave  all  to 
trade  on  their  own  credit  and  capital  without  any  inter 
ference  by  the  general  government  except  using  its 
powers  by  giving  through  its  mint  a  specie  currency." 

Van  Buren  took  a  permanent  residence  in  Washing 
ton  after  his  inauguration  as  vice-president.  He  now 
held  a  rank  accorded  to  no  other  vice-president  before 
or  since.  He  was  openly  adopted  by  the  American 
Augustus,  and  seemed  already  to  wear  the  title  of  Caesar. 
As  no  other  vice-president  has  been,  he  was  the  chief 
adviser  of  the  president,  and  as  much  the  second  officer 
of  the  government  in  power  as  in  the  dignity  of  his 
station.  His  only  chance  of  promotion  did  not  lie  in  the 
president's  death.  That  the  president  should  live  until 


218  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

after  the  election  of  1836  was  safely  over,  Van  Buren 
had  every  selfish  motive  as  well  as  many  generous 
motives  to  desire.  His  ambition  was  nowise  disagree- 

o 

able  to  his  chief.  To  see  that  ambition  satisfied  would 
be  grateful  to  the  patriotic  and  to  the  personal  wishes  of 
the  tempestuous  but  not  erratic  old  man  in  the  White 
House.  For  there  was  the  utmost  intimacy  and  confi 
dence  between  the  two  men.  Van  Buren  had  every 
reason,  personal,  political,  and  patriotic,  to  desire  the 
entire  success  of  the  administration.  He  was  not  only 
the  second  member  of  it ;  but  in  his  jealous  and  anxious 
watch  over  it  he  was  preserving  his  own  patrimony. 
His  ability  and  experience  were  far  greater  than  those 
of  any  other  of  its  members.  After  Taney  had  been 
transferred  from  the  attorney-general's  office  to  the 
treasury,  in  September,  1833,  to  make  the  transfer  of 
the  deposits,  Jackson  appointed  Benjamin  F.  Butler, 
Van  Buren's  intimate  friend,  his  former  pupil  and  part 
ner,  to  Taney's  place.  Louis  McLane,  Van  Buren's 
predecessor  in  the  mission  to  England,  and  his  successor, 
after  Edward  Livingston,  in  the  state  department,  re 
signed  the  latter  office  in  the  summer  of  1834.  He  had 
disapproved  Jackson's  removal  of  the  deposits  ;  he  be 
lieved  it  would  be  unpopular,  and  the  presidential  bee 
was  buzzing  in  his  bonnet.  John  Forsyth  of  Georgia, 
an  admirer  of  Van  Buren,  and  one  of  his  defenders  in 
the  senatorial  debate  at  the  time  of  his  rejection,  then 
took  the  first  place  in  the  cabinet.  Van  Buren  accom 
panied  Jackson  during  part  of  the  latter's  visit  to  the 
northeast  in  the  summer  of  1833,  when  as  the  adversary 
of  nullification  his  popularity  was  at  its  highest,  so  high 
indeed  that  Harvard  College,  to  Adams's  disgust,  made 
him  a  Doctor  of  Laws.  But  the  exciting  events  of 


NOMINATION  FOR   THE  PRESIDENCY.         219 

Jackson's  second  term  hardly  belong,  with  the  infor 
mation  we  yet  have,  to  Van  Buren's  biography.  They 
have  been  often  and  admirably  told  in  the  lives  of  Jack 
son  and  Clay,  the  seeming  chiefs  on  the  two  sides  of  the 
long  encounter. 

Van  Buren's  nomination  for  the  presidency,  bitter  as 
the  opposition  to  it  still  was,  came  as  matter  of  course. 
The  large  and  serious  secession  of  Calhoun  and  his 
followers  from  the  Jacksonian  party  was  followed  by 
the  later  and  wider,  and  the  more  serious  defection 
of  the  Democrats,  who  made  a  rival  Democratic  candi 
date  of  Hugh  L.  White,  a  senator  from  Tennessee  and 
formerly  a  warm  friend  and  adherent  of  Jackson.  It 
was  in  White's  behalf  that  Davy  Crockett  wrote,  in 
1835,  his  entertaining  though  scurrilous  life  of  Van 
Buren.  Jackson's  friendship  for  Van  Buren,  Crockett 
said,  had  arisen  from  his  hatred  to  Calhoun,  of  which 
Van  Buren,  who  was  "  secret,  sly,  selfish,  cold,  calcu 
lating,  distrustful,  treacherous,"  had  taken  advantage. 
Jackson  was  now  about  to  give  up  "  an  old,  long-tried 
faithful  friend,  Judge  White,  who  stuck  to  him  through 
all  his  tribulations,  helped  to  raise  his  fortunes  from  the 
beginning ;  adventurers  together  in  a  new  country, 
friends  in  youth  and  in  old  age,  fought  together  in  the 
same  battles,  risked  the  same  dangers,  starved  together 
in  the  same  deserts,  merely  to  gratify  this  revengeful 
feeling."  Van  Buren  was  "as  opposite  to  General 
Jackson  as  dung  is  to  a  diamond." 

It  is  difficult  to  find  any  justification  for  White's  can 
didacy.  He  was  a  modest,  dignified  senator  whose 
popularity  in  the  Democratic  southwest  rendered  him 
available  to  Van  Buren's  enemies.  But  neither  his 
abilities  nor  his  services  to  the  public  or  his  party  would 


220  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

have  suggested  him  for  the  presidency.  Doubtless  in 
him  as  with  other  modest,  dignified  men  in  history,  there 
burned  ambition  whose  fire  never  burst  into  flame,  and 
which  perhaps  for  its  suppression  was  the  more  trouble 
some.  He  consented,  apparently  only  for  personal  rea 
sons,  to  head  the  southern  schism  from  Jackson  and  Van 
Buren ;  and  in  his  political  destruction  he  paid  the 
penalty  usually  and  justly  visited  upon  statesmen  who 
through  personal  hatred  or  jealousy  or  ambition,  break 
party  ties  without  a  real  difference  of  principle.  Benton 
said  that  White  consented  to  run  "because  in  his 
advanced  age  he  did  the  act  which,  with  all  old  men,  is 
an  experiment,  and  with  most  of  them  an  unlucky  one. 
He  married  again  ;  and  this  new  wife  having  made  an 
immense  stride  from  the  head  of  a  boarding-house  table 
to  the  head  of  a  senator's  table,  could  see  no  reason  why 
she  should  not  take  one  step  more,  and  that  compara 
tively  short,  and  arrive  at  the  head  of  the  presidential 
table." 

The  Democratic- Republican  convention  met  at  Balti 
more  on  May  20,  1835,  nearly  eighteen  months  before 
the  election.  There  were  over  five  hundred  delegates 
from  twenty-three  states.  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  and 
Illinois  were  not  represented.  Party  organization  was 
still  very  imperfect.  The  modern  system  of  precise  and 
proportional  representations  was  not  yet  known.  The 
states  which  approved  the  convention  sent  delegates  in 
such  number  as  suited  their  convenience.  Maryland, 
the  convention  being  held  in  its  chief  city,  sent  183 
delegates ;  Virginia,  close  at  hand,  sent  102 ;  New 
York,  although  the  home  of  the  proposed  candidate, 
sent  but  42,  the  precise  number  of  its  electoral  votes. 
Tennessee  sent  but  one  ;  Mississippi  and  Missouri,  only 


NOMINATION  FOR   THE  PRESIDENCY.         221 

two  each.  In  making  the  nominations,  the  delegates 
from  each  state,  however  numerous  or  few,  cast  a  num 
ber  of  votes  equal  to  its  representation  in  the  electoral 
college.  The  183  delegates  from  Maryland  cast  there 
fore  but  ten  votes ;  while  the  single  delegate  from  Ten 
nessee,  much  courted  man  that  he  must  have  been, 
cast  15. 

It  was  the  second  national  convention  of  the  party. 
The  members  assembled  at  the  "  place  of  worship  of  the 
Fourth  Presbyterian  Church."     Instead  of  the  firm  and 
now  long-recognized  opening  by   the   chairman  of  the 
national  committee  provided  by  the  well-geared  machinery 
of  our  later  politics,  George  Kremer   of   Pennsylvania 
first    "stated    the    objects    of- the    meeting."     Andrew 
Stevenson  of  Virginia,  the  president,  felt  it  necessary  in 
his  opening  speech  to  defend  the  still  novel  party  insti 
tution.     Efforts,  he  said,  would  be  made  at  the  approach 
ing  election  to  divide  the  Republican  party  and  possibly 
to  defeat  an  election  by  the  people  in  their  primary  col 
leges.     Their  venerable  president  had  advised,  but  in 
vain,  constitutional    amendments  securing  this  election 
to  the  people,  and  preventing  its  falling  to  the  house 
of  representatives.     A  national  convention  was  the  best 
means  of  concentrating  the  popular  will,  the  only  defense 
against  a  minority  party.     It  was  recommended  by  pru 
dence,  sanctioned  by  the  precedent  of  1832,  and  had 
proved    effectual    by    experience.      They    must    guard 
against  local  jealousies.     "What,  gentlemen,"  he  said, 
"  would  you  think  of  the  sagacity  and  prudence  of  that 
individual  who  would  propose  the  expedient  of   cutting 
up  the  noble  ship  that  each  man   might  seize  his  own 
plank  and  steer  for  himself  ?  "     The  inquiries  must  be  : 
Who   can  best  preserve  the  unity  of  the   Democratic 


222  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

party?  Who  best  understands  the  principles  and 
motives  of  our  government  ?  Who  will  carry  out  the 
principles  of  the  Jeffersonian  era  and  General  Jackson's 
administration  ?  These  demands  clearly  enough  pointed 
out  Van  Buren.  Prayers  were  then  offered  up  "in  a 
fervent,  feeling  manner."  The  rule  requiring  two  thirds 
of  the  whole  number  of  votes  for  a  nomination  was  again 
adopted,  because  "  it  would  have  a  more  imposing  effect," 
though  nearly  half  the  convention,  210  to  231,  thought 
a  majority  was  more  "  according  to  Democratic  princi 
ples."  Niles  records  that  the  formal  motion  to  proceed 
to  the  nomination  caused  a  smile  among  the  members, 
so  well  settled  was  it  that  Van  Buren  was  to  be  the 
nominee.  He  received  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  con 
vention.  A  strong  fight  was  made  for  the  vice-presi 
dency  between  the  friends  of  Richard  M.  Johnson  of 
Kentucky  and  William  C.  Rives  of  Virginia.  The 
former  received  barely  the  two-thirds  vote.  The 
Virginia  delegation  upon  the  defeat  of  the  latter  did 
what  would  now  be  a  sacrilegious  laying  of  violent 
hands  on  the  ark.  Party  regularity  was  not  yet  so  chief 
a  deity  in  the  political  temple.  The  Virginians  had, 
they  said,  an  unpleasant  duty  to  perform  ;  but  they  would 
not  shrink  from  it.  They  would  not  support  Johnson 
for  the  vice-presidency ;  they  had  no  confidence  in  his 
principles  or  his  character ;  they  had  come  to  the  con 
vention  to  support  principles,  not  men  ;  they  had  already 
gone  as  far  as  possible  in  supporting  Mr.  Van  Buren, 
and  they  would  not  go  further.  Not  long  afterwards 
Rives  left  the  party.  No  platform  was  adopted  ;  but  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  prepare  an  address  to  the 
people. 

The  Whigs  nominated  General  William  Henry  Har- 


CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY.          223 

rison  for  the  presidency  and  Francis  Granger  for  the 
vice-presidency.  They  had  but  a  forlorn  hope  of  direct 
success.  But  the  secession  from  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  nullifiers,  and  the  more  serious  secession  in  the 
Southwest  headed  by  White,  made  it  seem  possible  to 
throw  the  election  into  the  house.  John  Tyler  of  Vir 
ginia  was  the  nominee  of  the  bolting  Democrats  for 
vice-president  upon  the  ticket  with  White.  The  Whigs 
of  Massachusetts  preferred  their  unequaled  orator  ;  for 
they  then  and  afterwards  failed  to  see,  as  the  admirers 
of  some  other  famous  Americans  have  failed  to  see,  that 
other  qualities  make  a  truer  equipment  for  the  first  office 
of  the  land  than  this  noble  art  of  oratory.  South  Caro 
lina  would  vote  against  Calhoun's  victorious  adversary  ; 
but  she  would  not,  in  the  first  instance  at  least,  vote  with 
the  Whig  heretics. 

It  was  a  disorderly  campaign,  lasting  a  year  and  a 
half,  and  never  reaching  the  supreme  excitement  of  1840 
or  1844.  The  opposition  did  not  deserve  success.  It 
had  neither  political  principle  nor  discipline.  Calhoun 
described  the  Van  Buren  men  as  "a  powerful  faction 
(party  it  cannot  be  called)  held  together  by  the  hopes  of 
public  plunder  and  marching  under  a  banner  whereon  is 
written  '  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils.'  "  There  was 
in  the  rhetorical  exaggeration  enough  truth  perhaps  to 
make  an  issue.  But  the  political  removals  under  Jack 
son  were  only  incidentally  touched  in  the  canvass. 
Amos  Kendall,  then  postmaster-general,  towards  the 
close  of  the  canvass  wrote  a  letter  which,  coming  from 
perhaps  the  worst  of  Jackson's  "  spoilsmen,"  shows  how 
far  public  sentiment  was  even  then  from  justifying  the 
political  interference  of  federal  officers  in  elections. 
Samuel  McKean,  senator  from  Pennsylvania,  had  writ- 


224  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ten  to  Kendall  complaining  that  three  employees  of  the 
post  -  office  had  used  the  time  and  influence  of  their 
official  stations  to  affect  elections,  by  written  communi 
cations  and  personal  importunities.  This,  he  said,  was 
"  a  loathsome  public  nuisance,"  though  admitting  that 
since  Kendall  became  postmaster-general  he  had  given 
no  cause  of  complaint.  Kendall  replied  on  September 
27,  1836,  that  though  it  was  difficult  to  draw  the  line 
between  the  rights  of  the  citizen  and  the  assumptions  of 
the  office-holder,  he  thought  it  dangerous  to  our  institu 
tions  that  government  employees  should  "  assume  to 
direct  public  opinion  and  control  the  results  of  elections 
in  the  general  or  state  government."  His  advice  to 
members  of  his  department  was  to  keep  as  clear  from 
political  strife  as  possible,  "  to  shun  mere  political  meet 
ings,  or,  if  present,  to  avoid  taking  any  part  in  their 
proceedings,  to  decline  acting  as  members  of  political 
committees  or  conventions."  In  making  appointments 
he  would  prefer  political  friends ;  but  he  "  would  not 
remove  a  good  postmaster  and  honest  man  for  a  mere 
difference  of  political  opinion."  The  complaints  were 
for  offenses  committed  under  his  predecessor ;  one  of 
the  three  offenders  had  left  the  service  ;  the  other  two 
had  been  free  from  criticism  for  seventeen  months. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  standard  thus  set  up  in 
public  was  higher  than  the  general  practice  of  Kendall 
or  his  subordinates ;  but  the  letter  showed  that  public 
sentiment  had  not  yet  grown  callous  to  this  odious  abuse. 
Jackson  did  not  permit  the  presidential  office  to  re 
strain  him  from  most  vigorous  and  direct  advocacy  of 
Van  Buren's  claims.  He  begged  Tennessee  not  to 
throw  herself  "  into  the  embraces  of  the  Federalists,  the 
Nullifiers,  or  the  new-born  Whigs."  They  were  living, 


CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY.  225 

he  said,  in  evil  times,  when  political  apostasy  had  be 
come  frequent,  when  public  men  (referring  to  White, 
John  Tyler,  and  others  who  had  gone  with  them)  were 
abandoning  principle  and  their  party  attachment  for 
selfish  ends.  To  this  it  was  replied  that  the  president's 
memory  was  treacherous;  that  he  had  forgotten  his 
early  friends,  and  listened  only  "  to  the  voice  of  flattery 
and  the  siren  voice  of  sycophancy."  The  dissenting 
Republicans  affected  to  support  administration  meas 
ures,  but  protested  against  Jackson's  dictating  the  suc 
cession.  They  were  then,  they  said,  "  what  they  were 
in  1828,  —  Jacksonians  following  the  creed  of  that 
apostle  of  liberty,  Thomas  Jefferson." 

Without  principle  as  was  this  formidable  secession,  it 
is  impossible  to  feel  much  more  respect  for  the  declara 
tion  of  principles  made  for  the  Whig  candidates.  Clay, 
the  chief  spokesman,  complained  that  Jackson  had 
killed  with  the  pocket  veto  the  land  bill,  which  proposed 
to  distribute  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public  lands 
among  the  states  according  to  their  federal  population 
(which  in  the  South  included  three  fifths  of  the  slaves), 
to  be  used  for  internal  improvements,  education,  or 
other  purposes.  He  pointed  out,  with  "  mixed  feelings 
of  pity  and  ridicule,"  that  the  few  votes  in  the  senate 
against  the  "  deposit  bill,"  which  was  to  distribute  the 
surplus  among  the  states,  had  been  cast  by  administration 
senators,  since  deserted  by  their  numerous  followers  who 
demanded  distribution.  He  rejoiced  that  Kentucky  was 
to  get  a  million  and  a  half  from  the  federal  treasury. 
He  denounced  Jackson's  "  tampering  with  the  currency  " 
by  the  treasury  order  requiring  public  lands  to  be  paid 
for  in  specie  and  not  in  bank-notes.  Jackson's  treat 
ment  of  the  Cherokees  seemed  the  only  point  of  attack 
apart  from  his  financial  policy. 


226  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

The  real  party  platforms  this  year  were  curiously 
found  in  letters  of  the  candidates  to  Sherrod  Williams, 
an  individual  by  no  means  distinguished.  On  April  7, 
1836,  he  addressed  a  circular  letter  to  Harrison,  Van 
Buren,  and  White,  asking  each  of  them  his  opinions  on 
five  points  :  —  Did  he  approve  a  distribution  of  the  sur 
plus  revenue  among  the  states  according  to  their  federal 
population,  for  such  uses  as  they  might  appoint  ?  Did 
he  approve  a  like  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the 
sales  of  public  lands  ?  Did  he  approve  federal  appro 
priations  to  improve  navigable  streams  above  ports  of 
entry  ?  Did  he  approve  another  bank  charter,  if  it 
should  become  necessary  to  preserve  the  revenue  and 
finances  of  the  nation  ?  Did  he  believe  it  constitutional 
to  expunge  from  the  records  of  a  house  of  Congress  any 
of  its  proceedings  ?  The  last  question  referred  to  Ben- 
ton's  agitation  for  a  resolution  expunging  from  the  rec 
ords  of  the  senate  the  resolution  of  1834  condemning 
Jackson's  removal  of  the  deposits  as  a  violation  of  the 
Constitution.  Harrison,  for  whose  benefit  the  questions 
were  put,  returned  what  was  supposed  to  be  the  popular 
affirmative  to  the  first  three  inquiries.  The  fourth  he 
answered  in  the  affirmative,  and  the  fifth  in  the  nega 
tive.  Van  Buren  promptly  pointed  out  to  Williams 
that  he  doubted  the  right  of  an  elector,  who  had  already 
determined  to  oppose  him,  to  put  inquiries  "  with  the 
sole  view  of  exposing,  at  his  own  time  and  the  mode  he 
may  select,  the  opinions  of  the  candidate  to  unfriendly 
criticism,"  but  nevertheless  promised  a  reply  after  Con 
gress  had  risen.  This  delay  he  deemed  proper,  because 
during  the  session  he  might,  as  president  of  the  senate, 
have  to  vote  upon  some  of  the  questions.  Williams 
replied  that  the  excuse  for  delay  was  "  wholly  and  en- 


CANDIDATE  FOR  -THE  PRESIDENCY.          227 

tirely  unsatisfactory."  Van  Buren  curtly  said  that  he 
should  wait  as  he  had  stated.  On  August  8,  not  far 
from  the  time  nowadays  selected  by  presidential  candi 
dates  for  their  letters  of  acceptance.  Van  Buren  ad 
dressed  a  letter  to  Williams,  the  prolixity  of  which 
seems  a  fault,  hut  which,  when  newspapers  were  fewer 
and  shorter,  and  reading  was  less  multifarious,  secured 
perhaps,  from  its  length,  a  more  ample  and  deliberate 
study  from  the  masses  of  the  people. 

For  clearness  and  explicitness,  and  for  cogency  of  ar 
gument,  this  letter  has  few  equals  among  those  written 
by  presidential  candidates.  This  most  conspicuous  of 
Van  Buren's  preelection  utterances  has  been  curiously 
ignored  by  those  who  have  accused  him  of  "  non-com- 
mittalism."  Congress,  he  said,  "does  not  possess  the 
power  under  the  Constitution  to  raise  money  for  dis 
tribution  among  the  states."  If  a  distinction  were  justi 
fiable,  and  of  this  he  was  not  satisfied,  between  raising 
money  for  such  a  purpose  and  the  distribution  of  an 
unexpected  surplus,  then  the  distribution  ought  not  to 
be  attempted  without  previous  amendment  of  the  Con 
stitution.  Any  system  of  distribution  must  introduce 
vices  into  both  the  state  and  federal  governments.  It 
would  be  a  great  misfortune  if  the  distribution  bill  al 
ready  passed  should  be  deemed  a  pledge  of  like  legisla 
tion  in  the  future.  So  much  of  the  letter  has  since 
largely  had  the  approval  of  American  sentiment,  and 
was  only  too  soon  emphasized  by  the  miserable  results 
of  the  bill  thus  condemned.  The  utterance  was  clear 
and  wise  ;  and  it  was  far  more.  It  was  a  singularly 
bold  attitude  to  assume,  not  only  against  the  views  of 
the  opposition,  but  against  a  measure  passed  by  Van 
Buren's  own  party  friends  and  signed  by  Jackson,  a 


228  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

measure  having  a  vast  and  cheap  popularity  throughout 
the  states  which  were  supposed,  and  with  too  much 
truth,  not  to  see  that  for  what  they  took  out  of  the 
federal  treasury  they  would  simply  have  to  put  so  much 
more  in.  "  I  hope  and  believe,"  said  Van  Buren,  "  that 
the  public  voice  will  demand  that  this  species  of  legisla 
tion  shall  terminate  with  the  emergency  that  produced 
it."  To  the  inquiry  whether  he  would  approve  a  dis 
tribution  among  the  states  of  the  proceeds  of  selling  the 
public  lands,  Van  Buren  plainly  said  that  if  he  were 
elected  he  would  not  favor  the  policy.  These  moneys, 
he  declared,  should  be  applied  "  to  the  general  wants  of 
the  treasury."  To  the  inquiry  whether  he  would  ap 
prove  appropriations  to  improve  rivers  above  ports  of 
entry,  he  quoted  with  approval  Jackson's  declaration  in 
the  negative.  He  would  not  go  beyond  expenditures  for 
light-houses,  buoys,  beacons,  piers,  and  the  removal  of 
obstructions  in  rivers  and  harbors  below  such  ports. 

Upon  the  bank  question,  too,  he  left  his  interrogator 
in  no  doubt.  If  the  people  wished  a  national  bank  as  a 
permanent  branch  of  their  institutions,  or  if  they  desired 
a  chief  magistrate  who  as  to  that  would  consider  it  his 
duty  to  watch  the  course  of  events  and  give  or  withhold 
his  assent  according  to  the  supposed  necessity,  then 
another  than  himself  must  be  chosen.  And  he  added  : 
"If,  on  the  other  hand,  with  this  seasonable,  explicit 
and  published  avowal  before  them,  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  shall  nevertheless  bestow 
upon  me  their  suffrages  for  the  office  of  president, 
skepticism  itself  must  cease  to  doubt,  and  admit  their 
will  to  be  that  there  shall  not  be  any  Bank  of  the  United 
States  until  the  people,  in  the  exercise  of  their  sovereign 
authority,  see  fit  to  give  to  Congress  the  right  to  estab- 


CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY.  229 

lish  one."  It  was  high  time  "  that  the  federal  govern 
ment  confine  itself  to  the  creation  of  coin,  and  that  the 
states  afford  it  a  fair  chance  for  circulation."  With 
the  power  of  either  house  of  Congress  to  expunge  from 
its  records,  he  pointed  out  that  the  president  could  have 
no  concern.  But  rather  than  avoid  an  answer,  he  said 
that  he  regarded  the  passage  of  Colonel  Benton's  resolu 
tion  as  "  an  act  of  justice  to  a  faithful  and  greatly  in 
jured  public  servant,  not  only  constitutional  in  itself,  but 
imperiously  demanded  by  a  proper  respect  for  the  well- 
known  will  of  the  people." 

This  justly  famous  letter  made  up  for  the  rather 
jejune  and  conventional  letter  of  acceptance  written  a 
year  before.  Not  concealing  his  sensitiveness  to  the 
charge  of  intrigue  and  management.  Van  Buren  had 
then  appealed  to  the  members  of  the  Democratic  con 
vention,  to  the  "  editors  and  politicians  throughout  the 
Union  "  who  had  preferred  him,  to  his  "  private  corre 
spondents  and  intimate  friends,"  and  to  those,  once  his 
"  friends  and  associates,  whom  the  fluctuations  of  politi 
cal  life  "  had  "  converted  into  opponents."  No  man, 
he  declared,  could  truly  say  that  he  had  solicited  politi 
cal  support,  or  entered  or  sought  to  enter  into  any 
arrangement  to  procure  him  the  nomination  he  had  now 
received,  or  to  elevate  him  to  the  chief  magistracy. 
There  was  no  public  question  of  interest  upon  which  his 
opinions  had  not  been  made  known  by  his  official  acts, 
his  own  public  avowals,  and  the  authorized  explanations 
of  his  friends.  The  last  was  a  touch  of  the  frankness 
which  Van  Buren  used  in  vain  to  stop  his  enemies' 
accusations  of  indirectness.  Instead  of  shielding  him 
self,  as  public  men  usually  and  naturally  do,  behind 
Butler,  the  attorney-general,  and  others  who  had  spoken 


230  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

for  him,  he  directly  assumed  responsibility  for  their 
"explanations."  He  considered  himself  selected  to 
carry  out  the  principles  and  policy  of  Jackson's  adminis 
tration,  u  happy,"  he  said,  "  if  I  shall  be  able  to  perfect 
the  work  which  he  has  so  gloriously  begun."  He  closed 
with  the  theoretical  declaration  which  consistently  ran 
through  his  chief  utterances,  that,  though  he  would 
"  exercise  the  powers  which  of  right  belong  to  the 
general  government  in  a  spirit  of  moderation  and 
brotherly  love,"  he  would  on  the  other  hand  "  religious 
ly  abstain  from  the  assumption  of  such  as  have  not  been 
delegated  by  the  Constitution." 

Upon  still  another  question  Van  Buren  explicitly  de 
clared  himself  before  the  election.  In  1835,  the  year 
of  his  nomination,  appeared  the  cloud  like  a  man's  hand 
which  was  not  to  leave  the  sky  until  out  of  it  had  come 
a  terrific,  complete,  and  beneficent  convulsion.  Then 
openly  and  seriously  began  the  work  of  the  extreme 
anti-slavery  men.  Clay  pointed  out  in  his  speech  on 
colonization  in  1836  that  "  this  fanatical  class "  of 
abolitionists  "  were  none  of  your  old-fashioned  gradual 
emancipationists,  such  as  Franklin,  Rush,  and  the  other 
wise  and  benevolent  Pennsylvanians  who  framed  the 
scheme  for  the  gradual  removal  of  slavery."  He  was 
right.  Many  of  the  new  abolitionists  were  on  the  verge, 
or  beyond  it,  of  quiet  respectability.  Educated,  intelli 
gent,  and  even  wealthy  as  some  of  them  were,  the  aboli 
tionists  did  not  belong  to  the  always  popular  class  of 
well-to-do  folks  content  with  the  institutions  of  society. 
Most  virtuous  and  religious  people  saw  in  them  only 
wicked  disturbers  of  the  peace.  All  the  comfortable, 
philosophical  opponents  of  slavery  believed  that  such 
wild  and  reckless  agitators  would,  if  encouraged,  pros- 


THE  ABOLITIONISTS.  231 

trate  the  pillars  of  civilization,  and  bring  in  anarchy, 
bloodshed,  and  servile  wars  worse  even  to  the  slaves 
than  the  wrongs  of  their  slavery.  But  to  the  members 
of  the  abolition  societies  which  now  rose,  this  was  no 
philosophical  or  economical  question.  They  were  un 
daunted  by  the  examples  of  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  Patrick  Henry,  who,  whatever  they  said  or  hoped 
against  slavery,  nevertheless  held  human  beings  in  bond 
age  ;  or  of  Adams  and  other  northern  adherents  of  the 
Constitution,  who  for  a  season  at  least  had  joined  in  a 
pact  to  protect  the  infamous  slave  traffic.  To  them, 
talk  of  the  sacred  Union,  or  of  the  great  advance  which 
negroes  had  made  in  slavery  and  would  not  have  made 
in  freedom,  was  idle.  With  unquenched  vision  they  saw 
the  horrid  picture  of  the  individual  slave  life,  not  the 
general  features  of  slavery  ;  they  saw  the  chain,  the 
lash,  the  brutalizing  and  contrived  ignorance  ;  they  saw 
the  tearing  apart  of  families,  with  their  love  and  hope, 
precisely  like  those  of  white  men  and  women,  crushed 
out  by  detestable  cruelty  ;  they  saw  the  beastly  dissolute 
ness  inevitable  to  the  plantation  system.  Nor  would 
they  be  still,  whatever  the  calm  preaching  of  political 
wisdom,  whatever  the  sincere  and  weighty  insolence  of 
men  of  wisdom  and  uprightness  and  property.  Northern 
men  of  1888  must  look  with  ineffaceable  shame  upon 
the  behavior  of  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  towards 
the  narrow,  fiery,  sometimes  almost  hateful,  apostles  of 
human  rights  ;  and  with  even  greater  shame  upon  the 
talk  of  the  sacred  right  of  white  men  to  make  brutes  of 
black  men,  a  right  to  be  treated,  as  the  best  of  Ameri 
cans  were  so  fond  of  saying,  with  a  tender  and  affection 
ate  regard  for  the  feelings  of  the  white  slave-masters. 
About  the  same  time  began  the  continual  presentation 


232  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

to  Congress  of  petitions  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and 
the  foolish  but  Heaven-ordained  attack  of  slaveholders 
on  the  right  of  petition.  The  agitation  rapidly  flaming 
up  was  far  different  from  the  practical  arid  truly  politi 
cal  discussion  over  the  Missouri  Compromise  fifteen  years 
before. 

As  yet,  indeed,  the  matter  was  not  politically  impor 
tant,  except  in  the  attack  upon  Van  Buren  made  by 
the  southern  members  of  his  party.  Sixteen  years  be 
fore,  he  had  voted  against  admitting  more  slave  states. 
He  had  aided  the  reelection  of  Rufus  King,  a  deter 
mined  enemy  of  slavery.  He  had  strongly  opposed 
Calhoun  and  the  southern  nullifiers.  In  the  "  Evening 
Post  "  and  the  "  Plaindealer  "  of  New  York  appeared 
from  1835  to  1837  the  really  noble  series  of  editorials  by 
William  Leggett,  strongly  proclaiming  the  right  of  free 
discussion  and  the  essential  wrong  of  slavery  ;  although 
sometimes  he  condemned  the  fanaticism  now  aroused 
as  "  a  species  of  insanity."  The  "  Post  "  strongly  sup 
ported  Van  Buren,  and  was  declared  at  the  South  to  be 
his  chosen  organ  for  addressing  the  public.  It  denied, 
however,  that  Van  Buren  had  any  "  connection  in  any 
way  or  shape  with  the  doctrines  or  movements  of  the 
abolitionists."  But  such  denials  were  widely  disbelieved 
by  the  slaveholders.  It  was  declared  that  he  had  a 
deep  agency  in  the  Missouri  question  which  fixed  upon 
him  a  support  of  abolition ;  his  denials  were  answered 
by  the  anti-slavery  petitions  from  twenty  thousand  me 
morialists  in  his  own  state  of  New  York,  and  by  the 
support  brought  him  by  the  enemies  of  slavery.  To  all 
this  the  Whig  "  dough-faces  "  listened  with  entire  satis 
faction.  They  must  succeed,  if  at  all,  through  southern 
distrust  or  dislike  of  Van  Buren.  In  July,  1834,  he  had 


SLAVERY.  233 

publicly  written  to  Samuel  Gwin  of  Mississippi  that  his 
opinions  upon  the  power  of  Congress  over  slave  prop 
erty  in  the  southern  states  were  so  well  understood  by 
his  friends  that  he  was  surprised  that  an  attempt  should 
be  made  to  deceive  the  public  about  them ;  that  slavery 
was  in  his  judgment  "  exclusively  under  the  control  of 
the  state  governments ;  "  that  no  "  contrary  opinion  to 
an  extent  deserving  consideration  "  was  entertained  in 
any  part  of  the  United  States  ;  and  that,  without  a 
change  of  the  Constitution,  no  interference  with  it  in  a 
state  could  be  had  u  even  at  the  instance  of  either  or  of 
all  the  slaveholding  states."  But,  it  was  said,  "  Tappan, 
Garrison,  and  every  other  fanatic  and  abolitionist  in 
the  United  States  not  entirely  run  mad,  will  grant  that." 
And,  indeed,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  nominated  twenty- 
four  years  later  upon  a  like  declaration  of  "  the  right 
of  each  state  to  order  and  control  its  own  domestic 
institutions  according  to  its  own  judgment  exclusively." 
The  District  of  Columbia,  however,  was  one  bit  of 
territory  in  which  Congress  doubtless  had  the  power  to 
abolish  slavery.  In  our  better  days  it  would  seem  to 
have  been  a  natural  enough  impulse  to  seek  to  make  free 
soil  at  least  of  the  capital  of  the  land  of  freedom.  But 
the  District  lay  between  and  was  completely  surrounded 
by  two  slave  states.  Washington  had  derived  its  laws 
and  customs  from  Maryland.  If  the  District  were  free 
while  Virginia  and  Maryland  were  slave,  it  was  feared 
with  much  reason  that  there  would  arise  most  dangerous 
collisions.  Its  perpetual  slavery  was  an  unforeseen  part 
of  the  price  Alexander  Hamilton  had  paid  to  procure  the 
federal  assumption  of  the  war  debts  of  the  states.  In 
Van  Buren's  time  there  was  almost  complete  acquies 
cence  in  the  proposition  that,  though  slavery  had  in  the 


234  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

District  no  constitutional  protection,  it  must  still  be 
deemed  there  a  part  of  the  institution  in  Virginia  and 
Maryland.  How  clear  was  the  understanding  may  be 
seen  from  language  of  undoubted  authority.  John 
Quincy  Adams  had  hitherto  labored  for  causes  which 
have  but  cold  and  formal  interest  to  posterity.  But  now, 
leaving  the  field  of  statesmanship,  where  his  glory  had 
been  meagre,  and,  fortunately  for  his  reputation,  with 
the  shackles  of  its  responsibility  no  longer  upon  him,  the 
generous  and  exalted  love  of  humanity  began  to  touch 
his  later  years  with  the  abiding  splendor  of  heroic  and 
far-seeing  courage.  He  became  the  first  of  the  great 
anti-slavery  leaders.  He  entered  for  all  time  the  group 
of  men,  Garrison,  Love  joy,  Giddings,  Phillips,  Sumner, 
and  Beecher,  to  whom  so  largely  we  owe  the  second  and 
nobler  salvation  of  our  land.  But  Adams  was  emphati 
cally  opposed  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District. 
In  December,  1831,  the  first  month  of  his  service  in  the 
house,  on  presenting  a  petition  for  such  abolition,  he  de 
clared  that  he  should  not  support  it.  In  February,  1837, 
a  few  days  before  Van  Buren's  inauguration,  there  oc 
curred  the  scene  when  Adams,  with  grim  and  dauntless 
irony,  brought  to  the  house  the  petition  of  some  slaves 
against  abolition.  In  his  speech  then  he  said  :  "  From 
the  day  I  entered  this  house  down  to  the  present  mo 
ment,  I  have  invariably  here,  and  invariably  elsewhere, 
declared  my  opinions  to  be  adverse  to  the  prayer  of  peti 
tions  which  call  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia." 

It  is  a  curious  but  inevitable  impeachment  of  the  im 
partiality  of  history  that  for  a  declaration  precisely  the 
same  as  that  made  by  a  great  and  recognized  apostle  of 
anti-slavery,  and  made  by  that  apostle  within  a  year 


SLAVERY.  235 

after,  Van  Buren  has  been  denounced  as  a  truckler  to  the 
South,  a  '•  northern  man  with  southern  principles."  Van 
Buren's  declaration  was  made,  not  like  Adams's  in  the 
easy  freedom  of  an  independent  member  of  Congress 
from  an  anti-slavery  district,  but  under  the  constraint 
of  a  presidential  nomination  partially  coming  from  the 
South.  In  the  canvass  before  his  election  Van  Buren 
gave  perfectly  fair  notice  of  his  intention.  "  I  must  go," 
he  said,  "  into  the  presidential  chair  the  inflexible  and 
uncompromising  opponent  of  every  attempt  on  the  part 
of  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
against  the  wishes  of  the  slaveholding  states."  This 
was  the  attitude,  not  only  of  Van  Buren  and  Adams, 
but  of  every  statesman  north  and  south,  and  of  the 
entire  North  itself  with  insignificant  exceptions.  The 
former's  explicit  declaration  was  doubtless  aimed  at  the 
pro-slavery  jealousy  stirred  up  against  himself  in  the 
South;  it  was  intended  to  have  political  effect.  But 
it  was  none  the  less  the  unambiguous  expression  of  an 
opinion  sincerely  shared  with  the  practically  unanimous 
sense  of  the  country. 

A  skillful  effort  was  made  to  embarrass  Van  Buren 
with  his  southern  supporters  over  a  more  difficult  ques 
tion.  The  anti-slavery  societies  at  the  North  sought  to 
circulate  their  literature  at  the  South.  So  strong  an 
enemy  of  slavery  as  William  Leggett  condemned  this  as 
"  fanatical  obstinacy,"  obviously  tending  to  stir  up  at  the 
South  insurrections,  whose  end  no  one  could  foresee, 
and  as  the  fruit  of  desperation  and  extravagance.  The 
southern  states  by  severe  laws  forbade  the  circulation 
of  the  literature.  Its  receipt  from  southern  post-offices 
led  to  great  excitement  and  even  violence.  In  August, 
1835,  Kendall,  the  postmaster- general,  was  appealed  to 


236  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

by  the  postmaster  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  for  ad 
vice  whether  he  should  distribute  papers  "  inflammatory 
and  incendiary  and  insurrectionary  in  the  highest  de 
gree,"  papers  whose  very  custody  endangered  the  mail. 
Kendall,  in  an  extraordinary  letter,  said  he  had  no  legal 
authority  to  prohibit  the  delivery  of  papers  on  account 
of  their  character,  but  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  di 
rect  the  delivery  at  Charleston  of  papers  such  as  were 
described.  Gouverneur,  the  postmaster  at  New  York, 
being  then  appealed  to  by  his  Charleston  brother,  de 
clined  to  forward  papers  mailed  by  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society.  This  dangerous  usurpation  was  de 
fended  upon  the  principle  of  solus  populi  supremo,  lex. 

In  December,  1835,  Jackson  called  the  attention  of 
Congress  to  the  circulation  of  "inflammatory  appeals 
addressed  to  the  passions  of  the  slaves  "  (as  they  used 
to  call  the  desire  of  black  men  to  be  free),  "  calculated 
to  stimulate  them  to  insurrection  and  to  produce  all  the 
horrors  of  a  servile  war."  A  bill  was  introduced  making 
it  unlawful  for  any  postmaster  knowingly  to  deliver  any 
printed  or  pictorial  paper  touching  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  states  by  whose  laws  their  circulation  was  prohibited. 
Webster  condemned  the  bill  as  a  federal  violation  of  the 
freedom  of  the  press.  Clay  thought  it  unconstitutional, 
vague,  indefinite,  and  unnecessary,  as  the  states  could 
lay  hold  of  citizens  taking  such  publications  from  post- 
offices  within  their  borders.  Benton  and  other  senators, 
several  of  them  Democrats  and  seven  from  slaveholding 
states,  voted  against  the  bill,  because  they  were,  so  Ben- 
ton  said,  u  tired  of  the  eternal  cry  of  dissolving  the 
Union,  did  not  believe  in  it,  and  would  not  give  a  re 
pugnant  vote  to  avoid  the  trial."  The  debate  did  not 
reach  a  very  exalted  height.  The  question  was  by  no 


SLAVERY.  237 

means  free  from  doubt.  Anti-slavery  papers  probably 
were,  as  the  southerners  said,  "  incendiary  "  to  their 
states.  Slavery  depended  upon  ignorance  and  fear. 
The  federal  post-office  no  doubt  was  intended,  as  Ken 
dall  argued,  to  be  a  convenience  to  the  various  states, 
and  not  an  offense  against  their  codes  of  morality. 
There  has  been  little  opposition  to  the  present  prohibi 
tion  of  the  use  of  the  post-office  for  obscene  literature, 
or,  to  take  a  better  illustration,  for  the  circulars  of  lot 
teries  which  are  lawful  in  some  states  but  not  in  others. 
When  the  bill  came  to  a  vote  in  the  senate,  although 
there  was  really  a  substantial  majority  against  it,  a  tie 
was  skillfully  arranged  to  compel  Van  Buren,  as  vice- 
president,  to  give  the  casting  vote.  White,  the  southern 
Democratic  candidate  so  seriously  menacing  him,  was 
in  the  senate,  and  voted  for  the  bill.  Van  Buren  must, 
it  was  supposed,  offend  the  pro-slavery  men  by  voting 
against  the  bill,  or  offend  the  North  and  perhaps  bruise 
his  conscience  by  voting  for  it.  When  the  roll  was 
being  called,  Van  Buren,  so  Benton  tells  us,  was  out  of 
the  chair,  walking  behind  the  colonnade  at  the  rear  of 
the  vice-president's  seat.  Calhoun,  fearful  lest  he  might 
escape  the  ordeal,  eagerly  asked  where  he  was,  and  told 
the  sergeant-at-arms  to  look  for  him.  But  Van  Buren 
was  ready,  and  at  once  stepped  to  his  chair  and  voted 
for  the  bill.  His  close  friend,  Silas  Wright  of  New 
York,  also  voted  for  it.  Benton  says  he  deemed  both 
the  votes  to  be  political  and  given  from  policy.  So  they 
probably  were.  To  Van  Buren  all  the  fire-eating  meas 
ures  of  Calhoun  and  the  pro-slavery  men  were  most  dis 
tasteful.  He  probably  thought  the  bill  would  do  more 
to  increase  than  allay  agitation  at  the  North.  Walter 
Scott,  when  the  prince  regent  toasted  him  as  the  author 


238  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

of  Waverley,  feeling  that  even  Royal  Highness  had  no 
right  in  a  numerous  company  to  tear  away  the  long  kept 
and  valuable  secrecy  of  "  the  great  Unknown,"  rose  and 
gravely  said  to  his  host :  "  Sire,  I  am  not  the  author 
of  Waverley."  There  were,  he  thought,  questions  which 
did  not  entitle  the  questioner  to  be  told  the  truth.  So 
Van  Buren  may  have  thought  there  were  political  inter 
rogations  which,  being  made  for  sheer  party  purposes, 
might  rightfully  be  answered  for  like  purposes.  Since 
the  necessity  for  his  vote  was  contrived  to  injure  him 
and  not  to  help  or  hurt  the  bill,  he  probably  felt  justified 
so  to  vote  as  best  to  frustrate  the  design  against  him. 
This  persuasive  casuistry  usually  overcomes  a  candidate 
for  great  office  in  the  stress  of  conflict.  But  lenient  as 
maybe  the  judgment  of  party  supporters,  and  distressing 
as  may  seem  the  necessity,  the  untruth  pretty  surely 
returns  to  plague  the  statesman.  Van  Buren  never 
deserved  to  be  called  a  "  northern  man  with  southern 
principles."  But  this  vote  came  nearer  to  an  excuse  for 
the  epithet  than  did  any  other  act  of  his  career. 

The  election  proved  how  large  was  the  southern 
defection.  Georgia  and  Tennessee,  which  had  been 
almost  unanimously  for  Jackson  in  1836,  now  voted  for 
White.  Mississippi,  where  in  that  year  there  had  been 
no  opposition,  and  Louisiana,  where  Jackson  had  eight 
votes  to  Clay's  five,  now  gave  Van  Buren  majorities  of 
but  three  hundred  each.  In  North  Carolina  Jackson 
had  had  24,862  votes  and  Clay  only  4,563  ;  White  got 
23,626  to  26,910  for  Van  Buren.  In  Virginia  Jackson 
had  three  times  the  vote  of  Clay  ;  Van  Buren  had  but 
one  fourth  more  votes  than  White.  In  Benton's  own 
state,  so  nearly  unanimous  for  Jackson,  White  had  over 
7,000  to  Van  Buren's  11,000.  But  in  the  Northeast 


ELECTED   PRESIDENT. 


239 


Van  Buren  was  very  strong.  Jackson's  majority  in 
Maine  of  6,087  became  a  majority  of  7,751  for  Van 
Buren.  New  Hampshire,  the  home  of  Hill  and  Wood- 
bury,  had  given  Jackson  a  majority  of  6,376  ;  it  gave 
Van  Buren  over  12,000.  The  Democratic  majority  in 
New  York  rose  from  less  than  14,000  to  more  than 
28,000,  and  this  majority  was  rural  and  not  urban. 
The  majority  in  New  York  city  was  but  about  1,000. 
Of  the  fifty-six  counties  Van  Buren  carried  forty-two, 
while  nowadays  his  political  successors  rarely  carry 
more  than  twenty.  Connecticut  had  given  a  majority 
of  6,000  for  Clay  ;  it  gave  Van  Buren  over  500.  Rhode 
Island  had  voted  for  Clay  ;  it  now  voted  for  Van  Buren. 
Massachusetts  was  carried  for  Webster  by  42,247  against 
34,474  for  Van  Buren ;  Clay  had  had  33,003  to  only 
14,545  for  Jackson.  But  New  Jersey  shifted  from 
Jackson  to  Harrison,  although  a  very  close  state  at  both 
elections ;  and  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illi 
nois  Van  Buren  fell  far  behind  Jackson. 

The  popular  vote,  omitting  South  Carolina,  where  the 
legislature  chose  the  electors,  was  as  follows  : 


New- 
England. 

Middle 

States. 

South. 

West. 

Total. 

Van  Buren     .     . 
Harrison,  White, 
and  Webster  . 

112,480 
106,169 

310,203 

282,376 

141,942 
138,059 

198,053 
209,046 

762,678 
735,650 

The  electoral  votes  were  thus  divided : 


New 
England. 

Middle 
States. 

South. 

West. 

Total. 

Van  Buren    . 

29 

72 

57 

12 

170 

Harrison   . 

7 

21 

— 

45 

73 

Webster   .     .     . 

14 

— 

— 

— 

14 

White.     .     .     - 

— 

— 

26 

"~- 

26 

240  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Van  Buren  thus  came  to  the  presidency  supported  hy 
the  great  Middle  States  and  New  England  against  the 
West,  with  the  South  divided.  Omitting  the  uncon- 
tested  reelection  of  Monroe  in  1820,  and  the  almost 
uncontested  reelection  of  Jefferson  in  1804,  Van  Buren 
was  the  first  Democratic  candidate  for  president  who 
carried  New  England.  He  had  there  a  clear  majority 
in  both  the  electoral  and  the  popular  vote.  Nor  has  any 
Democrat  since  Van  Buren  obtained  a  majority  of  the 
popular  vote  in  that  strongly  thinking  and  strongly 
prejudiced  community.  Pierce,  against  the  feeble  Whig 
candidacy  of  Scott,  carried  its  electoral  vote  in  1852, 
but  by  a  minority  of  its  popular  vote,  and  only  because 
of  the  large  Free  Soil  vote  for  Hale.  No  other  Demo 
crat  since  1852  has  had  any  electoral  vote  from  New 
England  outside  of  Connecticut.  Virginia  refused  its 
vote  to  Johnson,  who,  in  the  failure  of  either  candidate 
to  receive  a  majority  of  the  electoral  vote,  was  chosen 
vice-president  by  the  senate. 

When  the  electoral  votes  were  formally  counted  be 
fore  the  houses  of  Congress,  the  result,  so  contemporary 
record  informs  us,  was  "received  with  perfect  decorum 
by  the  house  and  galleries."  Enthusiasm  was  going 
out  with  Jackson,  to  come  back  again  with  Harrison. 
Van  Buren's  election  was  the  success  of  intellectual 
convictions,  and  not  the  triumph  of  sentiment.  He 
had  come  to  power,  as  "  the  house  and  galleries "  well 
knew,  in  "  perfect  decorum."  Not  a  single  one  of  the 
generous  but  sometimes  cheap  and  fruitless  rushes  of 
feeling  occasionally  so  potent  in  politics  had  helped  him 
to  the  White  House.  Not  that  he  was  ungenerous  or 
lacking  in  feeling.  Very  far  from  it;  few  men  have 
inspired  so  steady  and  deep  a  political  attachment 


ELECTED  PRESIDENT.  241 

among  men  of  strong  character  and  patriotic  aspira 
tions.  But  neither  in  his  person  nor  in  his  speech  or 
conduct  was  there  anything  of  the  strong  picturesque- 
ness  which  impresses  masses  of  men,  who  must  be 
touched,  if  at  all,  by  momentary  glimpses  of  great  men 
or  by  vivid  phrases  which  become  current  about  them. 
His  election  was  no  more  than  a  triumph  of  disciplined 
good  sense  and  political  wisdom. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CRISIS  OF  1837. 

ON  March  4,  1837,  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  rode  to 
gether  from  the  White  House  to  the  Capitol  in  a  "  beau 
tiful  phaeton  "  made  from  the  timber  of  the  old  frig 
ate  Constitution,  the  gift  to  the  general  from  the  Demo 
crats  of  New  York  city.      He  was  the  third  and  last 
president  who  has,  after  serving  through  his  term,  left 
office  amid  the  same  enthusiasm  which  attended  him 
when  he  entered  it,  and  to  whom  the  surrender  of  place 
has  not  been  full  of  those  pangs  which  attend  sudden 
loss  of  power,  and    of  which   the    certain    anticipation 
ought  to  moderate  ambition  in  a  country  so  rarely  per 
mitting  a  long  and  continuous  public  career.     Washing 
ton,  amid  an  almost  unanimous  love  and  reverence,  left 
a  station  of  which  he  was  unaffectedly  weary ;  and  he 
was   greater  out    of  office  than   in  it.     Jefferson    and 
Jackson  remained  really  powerful  characters.     Neither 
at  Monticello  nor  at  the  Hermitage,  after  their  masters 
had  returned,  was  there  any  lack  of  the  incense  of  sin 
cere  popular  flattery  or  of  the  appeals  for  the  exercise 
of  admitted  and  enormous  influence,  in  which  lies  much 
of  the  unspeakable  fascination  of  a  great  public  station. 
Leaving  the  White  House  under  a  still  and  brilliant 
sky,  the  retiring  and  incoming  rulers  had  such  a  popu 
lar  and  military  attendance   as  without  much  order  or 
splendor  has    usually  gone    up  Capitol    Hill  with    our 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  243 

presidents.  Van  Buren's  inaugural  speech  was  heard, 
it  is  said,  by  nearly  twenty  thousand  persons  ;  for  he 
read  it  with  remarkable  distinctness  and  in  a  quiet  air, 
from  the  historic  eastern  portico.  He  returned  from 
the  inauguration  to  his  private  residence ;  and  with  a 
fine  deference  insisted  upon  Jackson  remaining  in  the 
White  House  until  his  departure,  a  few  days  later,  for 
Tennessee.  Van  Buren  in  his  own  carriage  took  Jack 
son  to  the  terminus  of  the  new  railway  upon  which  the 
journey  home  was  to  begin.  He  bade  the  old  man  a 
most  affectionate  farewell,  and  promised  to  visit  him  at 
the  Hermitage  in  the  summer. 

The  new  cabinet,  with  a  single  exception,  was  the  same 
as  Jackson's  :  John  Forsyth  of^  Georgia,  secretary  of 
state ;  Levi  Woodbury  of  New  Hampshire,  secretary  of 
the  treasury  ;  Mahlon  Dickerson  of  New  Jersey,  secre-  i 
tary  of  the  navy ;  Kendall,  postmaster-general ;  and 
Butler,  attorney- general.  Joel  R.  Poinsett,  a  strong 
union  man  among  the  nullifiers  of  South  Carolina, 
became  secretary  of  war.  Cass  had  left  this  place  in 
1836  to  be  minister  to  France,  and  Butler  had  since 
temporarily  filled  it,  as  well  as  his  own  post  of  attorney- 
general.  The  cabinet  had  indeed  been  largely  Van 
Buren's,  two  years  and  more  before  he  was  president. 

Van  Buren's  inaugural  address  began  again  with  the 
favorite  touch  of  humility,  but  it  now  had  an  agreeable 
dignity.  He  was,  he  said,  the  first  president  born  after 
the  revolution ;  he  belonged  to  a  later  age  than  his  illus 
trious  predecessors.  Nor  ought  he  to  expect  his  coun 
trymen  to  weigh  his  actions  with  the  same  kind  and 
partial  hand  which  they  had  used  towards  worthies  of 
revolutionary  times.  But  he  piously  looked  for  the  sus 
taining  support  of  Providence,  and  the  kindness  of  a 


244  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

people  who  had  never  yet  deserted  a  public  servant 
honestly  laboring  in  their  cause.  There  was  the  usual 
congratulation  upon  American  institutions  and  history. 
We  were,  he  said,  —  and  the  boast  though  not  so  delight 
ful  to  the  taste  of  a  later  time  was  perfectly  true, — 
without  a  parallel  throughout  the  world  "in  all  the 
attributes  of  a  great,  happy,  and  flourishing  people." 
Though  we  restrained  government  to  the  "  sole  legiti 
mate  end  of  political  institutions,"  we  reached  the 
Benthamite  "greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  num 
ber,"  and  presented  "  an  aggregate  of  human  prosperity 
surely  not  elsewhere  to  be  found."  We  must,  by  observ 
ing  the  limitations  of  government,  perpetuate  a  condition 
of  things  so  singularly  happy.  Popular  government, 
whose  failure  had  fifty  years  ago  been  boldly  predicted, 
had  now  been  found  "  wanting  in  no  element  of  en 
durance  or  strength."  His  policy  should  be  "  a  strict 
adherence  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitution 
.  .  .  viewing  it  as  limited  to  national  objects,  regarding 
it  as  leaving  to  the  people  and  the  states  all  power  not 
explicitly  parted  with."  Upon  one  question  he  spoke 
precisely.  For  the  first  time  slavery  loomed  up  in  the 
inaugural  of  an  American  president.  It  seemed,  how 
ever,  at  once  to  disappear  from  politics  in  the  practically 
unanimous  condemnation  of  the  abolition  agitation,  an 
agitation  which,  though  carried  on  for  the  noblest  pur 
poses,  seemed  —  for  such  is  the  march  of  human  rights 
—  insane  and  iniquitous  to  most  patriotic  and  intelli 
gent  citizens.  Van  Buren  quoted  the  explicit  declara 
tion  made  by  him  before  the  election  against  the  aboli 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  without  the 
consent  of  the  slave  states,  and  against  "  the  slightest 
interference  with  it  in  the  states  where  it  exists."  Not 


CRISIS  OF  1837.  245 

a  word  was  said  of  the  extension  of  slavery  in  the  terri 
tories.  That  question  still  slept  under  the  potion  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  to  wake  with  the  acquisition  of 
Texas.  In  Van  Buren's  declaration  there  was  nothing 
in  the  slightest  degree  inconsistent  even  with  the  Repub 
lican  platforms  of  1856  and  1860. 

The  inaugural  concluded  with  a  fine  tribute  to  Jack 
son.  "  I  know,"  Van  Buren  said,  "  that  I  cannot  ex 
pect  to  perform  the  arduous  task  with  equal  ability  and 
success.  But  united  as  I  have  been  in  his  counsels,  a 
daily  witness  of  his  exclusive  and  unsurpassed  devo 
tion  to  his  country's  welfare,  agreeing  with  him  in  senti 
ments  which  his  countrymen  have  warmly  supported, 
and  permitted  to  partake  largely  of  his  confidence,  I 
may  hope  that  somewhat  of  the  same  cheering  approba 
tion  will  be  found  to  attend  upon  my  path.  For  him  I 
but  express,  with  my  own,  the  wishes  of  all,  that  he  may 
yet  long  live  to  enjoy  the  brilliant  evening  of  his  well- 
spent  life." 

The  lucid  optimism  of  the  speech  was  in  perfect  tem 
per  with  this  one  of  those  shining  and  mellow  days, 
which  even  March  now  and  then  brings  to  Washington. 
But  there  was  latent  in  the  atmosphere  a  storm,  carry 
ing  with  it  a  singularly  furious  and  complete  devastation. 
In  the  month  before  the  inauguration,  Benton,  uporTj 
whom  Van  Buren  was  pressing  a  seat  in  the  cabinet,  , 
told  the  president-elect  that  they  were  on  the  eve  of  an 
explosion  of  the  paper-money  system.  But  the  latter 
offended  Benton  by  saying :  "  Your  friends  think  you  a 
little  exalted  in  the  head  on  the  subject."  And  doubt 
less  the  prophecies  of  the  bank  opponents  had  been 
somewhat  discredited  by  the  delay  of  the  disaster  which 
was  to  justify  their  denunciations.  The  profoundly 


246  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

thrilling  and  hidden  delight  which  comes  with  the  first 
taste  of  supreme  power,  even  to  the  experienced  and 
battered  man  of  affairs,  had  been  enjoyed  by  Van  Buren 
only  a  few  days,  when  the  air  grew  heavy  about  him, 
and  then  perturbed,  and  then  violently  agitated,  until  in 
two  months  broke  fiercely  and  beyond  all  restraint  the 
most  terrific  of  commercial  convulsions  in  the  United 
States.  Since  Washington  began  the  experiment  of  our 
federal  government  amid  the  sullen  doubts  of  ext~  -me 
Federalists  and  extreme  Democrats,  no  president,  save 
only  Abraham  Lincoln,  has  had  to  face  at  the  outset  of 
his  presidency  so  appalling  a  political  situation. 

The  causes  of  the  panic  of  1837  lay  far  deeper  than 
in  the  complex  processes  of  banking  or  in  the  faults  of 
federal  administration  of  the  finances.  But,  as  a  man 
suddenly  ill  prefers  to  find  for  his  ailment  some  recent 
and  obvious  cause,  and  is  not  convinced  by  even  a  long 
and  dangerous  sickness  that  its  origin  lay  in  old  and  con 
tinued  habits  of  life,  so  the  greater  part  of  the  American 
people  and  of  their  leaders  believed  this  extraordinary 
crisis  to  be  the  result  of  financial  blunders  of  Jackson's 
administration.  They  believed  that  Van  Buren  could 
with  a  few  strokes  of  his  pen  repair,  if  he  pleased,  those 
blunders  and  restore  commercial  confidence  and  prosper 
ity.  The  panic  of  1837  became,  and  has  very  largely 
remained,  the  subject  of  political  and  partisan  differ 
ences,  which  obscure  its  real  phenomena  and  causes. 
The  far-seeing  and  patriotic  intrepidity  with  which  Van 
Buren  met  its  almost  overwhelming  difficulties  is  really 
the  crown  of  his  political  career.  Fairly  to  appreciate 
the  service  he  then  rendered  his  country,  the  causes  of 
this  famous  crisis  must  be  attentively  considered. 

In  1819  the  United  States  suffered  from  commercial 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  247 

and  financial  derangement,  which  may  be  assumed  to 
have  been  the  effect  of  the  second  war  with  Great 
Britain.  The  enormous  waste  of  a  great  war  carried  on 
by  a  highly  organized  nation  is  apt  not  to  become  obvious 
in  general  business  distress  until  some  time  after  the  war 
has  ended.  A  buoyant  extravagance  in  living  and  in 
commercial  and  manufacturing  ventures  will  continue 
after  a  peace  has  brought  its  extraordinary  promises, 
upon  the  faith  of  which,  and  in  joyful  ignorance,  the 
evil  and  inevitable  day  is  postponed.  All  this  was  seen 
later  and  on  a  vaster  scale  from  1865  to  1873.  In  1821 
the  country  had  quite  recovered  from  its  depression ; 
and  from  this  time  on  to  near  the  end  of  Jackson's  ad 
ministration  the  United  States  saw  a  material  prosperity, 
doubtless  the  greatest  ever  before  known.  The  exuber 
ant  outburst  of  John  Quincy  Adams's  message  of  1827, 
—  that  the  productions  of  our  soil,  the  exchanges  of  our 
commerce,  the  vivifying  labors  of  human  industry,  had 
combined  "  to  mingle  in  our  cup  a  portion  of  enjoyment 
as  large  and  liberal  as  the  indulgence  of  Heaven  has 
perhaps  ever  granted  to  the  imperfect  state  of  man  upon 
earth,"  —  was  in  the  usual  tone  of  the  public  utterances 
of  our  presidents  from  1821  to  1837.  Our  harvests 
were  always  great.  We  were  a  chosen  people  delight 
ing  in  reminders  from  our  rulers  of  our  prosperity,  and 
not  restless  under  their  pious  urgency  of  perennial  grati 
tude  to  Providence.  In__1821  the  national  debt  had 
slightly  increased,  reaching  upwards  of  $90,000,000 ; 
but  from  that  time  its  steady  and  rapid  payment  went 
on  until  it  was  all  discharged  in  1834.  Our  cities  grew. 
Our  population  stretched  eagerly  out  into  the  rich  Mis 
sissippi  valley.  From  a  population  of  ten  millions  in 
1821,  we  reached  sixteen  millions  in  1837.  New  York 


248  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

from  about  1,400,000  became  2,200,000  ;  and  Pennsyl 
vania  from  about  1,000,000  became  1,600,000.  But 
the  amazing  growth  was  at  the  west  —  Illinois  from 
60,000  to  400,000,  Indiana  from  170,000  to  600,000, 
Ohio  from  600,000  to  1,400,000,  Tennessee  from  450,000 
to  800,000.  Missouri  had  increased  her  70,000  to  five 
fold  ;  Mississippi  her  80,000  to  four-fold  ;  Michigan  her 
10,000  twenty-fold.  Iowa  and  Wisconsin  were  entirely 
unsettled  in  1821 ;  in  1837  the  fertile  lands  of  the  former 
maintained  nearly  forty  thousand  and  of  the  latter  nearly 
thirty  thousand  hardy  citizens.  New  towns  and  cities 
rose  with  magical  rapidity.  With  much  that  was  un 
lovely  there  was  also  exhibited  an  amazing  energy  and 
capacity  for  increase  in  wealth.  The  mountain  barriers 
once  passed,  not  only  by  adventurous  pioneers  but  by 
the  pressing  throngs  of  settlers,  there  were  few  obstacles 
to  the  rapid  creation  of  comfort  and  wealth.  Nor  in  the 
Mississippi  valley  and  the  lands  of  the  Northwest  were 
the  settlers  met  by  the  harsh  soil,  the  hostilities  and  re 
luctance  of  nature  in  whose  conquest  upon  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  the  American  people  had  gained  some  of  their 
strongest  and  most  enduring  characteristics.  We  hardly 
realize  indeed  how  much  better  it  was  for  after  times 
that  our  first  settlements  were  difficult.  In  the  easy 
opening  and  tillage  of  the  rich  and  sometimes  rank  lands 
at  the  West  there  was  an  inferior,  a  less  arduous  disci 
pline.  The  American  temper  rushed  now  to  speculation, 
rather  than  to  toil  or  venture.  It  did  not  seem  neces 
sary  to  create  wealth  by  labor ;  the  treasures  lay  ready 
for  whomever  should  first  reach  the  doors  of  the  treasure 
houses.  To  make  easy  the  routes  to  El  Dorado  of 
prairies  and  river  bottoms  was  the  quickest  way  to 
wealth. 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  249 

Roads,  canals,  river  improvements,  preceded,  attended, 
followed  these  sudden  settlements,  this  vast  and  jubilant 
movement  of  population.  There  was  an  extraordinary 
growth  of  "  internal  improvements."  In  his  message  of 
1831,  Jackson  rejoiced  at  the  high  wages  earned  by 
laborers  in  the  construction  of  these  works,  which  he 
truly  said  were  "  extending  with  unprecedented  rapid 
ity."  The  constitutional  power  of  the  federal  govern 
ment  to  promote  the  improvements  within  the  states 
became  a  serious  question,  because  the  improvements 
proposed  were  upon  so  vast  a  scale.  No  single  interest 
had  for  fifteen  years  before  1837  held  so  large  a  part  of 
American  attention  as  did  the  making  of  canals  and 
roads.  The  debates  of  Congress  and  legislatures,  the 
messages  of  presidents  and  governors,  were  full  of  it.  If 
the  Erie  Canal,  finished  in  1825,  had  rendered  vast 
natural  resources  available,  and  had  made  its  chief 
builder  famous,  why  should  not  like  schemes  prosper 
further  west.  The  success  of  railroads  was  already  es 
tablished  ;  and  there  was  indefinite  promise  in  the  exten 
sions  of  them  already  planned.  In  1830  twenty-three 
miles  had  been  constructed ;  in  1831  ninety-four  miles  ; 
and  in  1836  the  total  construction  had  risen  to  twelve 
hundred  and  seventy-three  miles. 

The  Americans  were  then  a  far  more  homogeneous 
people  than  they  are  to-day.  The  great  Irish,  German, 
and  Scandinavian  immigrations  had  not  taken  place. 
Our  race  diversities  were,  with  exceptions,  unimportant 
in  extent  or  lost  in  the  lapse  of  time,  the  diversities  of 
British  descendants.  The  compensations  and  balances, 
which  in  the  varying  habits  and  prejudices  of  a  more 
varied  population  tend  to  restrain  and  neutralize  vaga 
ries,  did  not  exist.  One  sentiment  seized  the  whole  nation 


250  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

far  more  readily  than  could  happen  in  the  complexity  of 
our  modern  population  and  the  diversity  and  rivalry  of 
its  strains.  Not  only  did  this  homogeneity  make  Ameri 
cans  open  to  single  impulses  ;  but  there  was  besides  little 
essential  difference  in  their  various  environments.  They 
all,  since  the  later  days  of  Monroe's  presidency,  had 
lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  official  delight  and  congratu 
lation  over  the  past,  and  of  unrestrained  promise  for  the 
future.  They  all,  whether  in  the  grain  fields  at  the 
North  or  the  cotton  fields  at  the  South,  had  behind  them 
the  Atlantic  with  traditions  or  experiences  of  poverty  and 
oppression  beyond  it.  Every  American  had,  in  his  own 
latitude,  since  the  ampler  opening  of  roads  and  water 
ways,  and  the  peaceful  conquest  of  the  Appalachian 
mountain  ranges,  seen  to  the  west  of  him  fertility  and 
promise  and  performance.  And  the  fertility  and  prom 
ise  had,  since  the  second  English  war,  been  no  longer 
in  a  land  of  hardship  and  adventure  remote  and  almost 
foreign  to  the  seaboard.  Every  American  under  Jack 
son's  administration  had  before  him,  as  the  one  universal 
experience  of  those  who  had  taken  lands  at  the  West,  an 
enormous  and  certain  increase  of  value,  full  of  enchant 
ment  to  the  tillers  of  flinty  soil  in  New  England  or  of 
the  overused  fields  of  the  South.  If  new  lands  at  the 
West  could  be  made  accessible  by  internal  improvements, 
the  succession  of  seed-time  and  harvest  had  for  a  dozen 
years  seemed  no  more  certain  than  that  the  value  of 
those  lands  would  at  once  increase  prodigiously.  So  the 
American  people  with  one  consent  gave  themselves  to  an 
amazing  extravagance  of  land  speculation.  The  Eden 
which  Martin  Chuzzlewit  saw  in  malarial  decay  was  to 
be  found  in  the  new  country  on  almost  every  stream  to 
the  east  of  the  Mississippi  and  on  many  streams  west  of 


CRISIS    OF  1837.  251 

it  where  flatboats  could  be  floated.  Frauds  there  doubt 
less  were ;  but  they  were  incidental  to  the  honest  delu 
sion  of  intelligent  men  inspired  by  the  most  extraordi 
nary  growth  the  world  had  seen.  The  often  quoted 
illustration  of  Mobile,  the  valuation  of  whose  real  estate 
rose  from  $1,294,810  in  1831  to  $27,482,961  in  1837, 
to  sink  again  in  1846  to  $8,638,250,  not  unfairly  tells 
the  story.  In  Pensacola,  lots  which  to-day  are  worth 
$50  each  were  sold  for  as  much  as  lots  on  Fifth  Avenue  in 
New  York,  which  to-day  are  worth  $100,000  apiece.  Real 
estate  in  the  latter  city  was  assessed  in  1836  at  more 
than  it  was  in  the  greatly  larger  and  richer  city  of  fifteen 
years  later.  From  1830  to  1837  the  steamboat  tonnage 
on  the  western  rivers  rose  from  63,053  to  253,661. 
From  1833  to  1837  the  cotton  crop  of  the  newer  slave 
states,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Ar 
kansas  and  Florida,  increased  from  536,450  to  916,960 
bales,  while  the  price  with  fluctuations  rose  from  ten  to 
twenty  cents  a  pound.  Foreign  capital  naturally  enough 
came  to  share  in  the  splendid  money-making.  From 
1821  to  1833  the  annual  import  of  specie  from  England 
had  averaged  about  $100,000,  in  the  last  year  being  only 
$31,903 ;  but  in  1834  it  became  $5,716,253,  in  1835, 
$914,958,  and  in  1836  $2,322,920,  the  entire  export  to 
England  of  specie  for  all  these  three  years  being  but 
$51,807,  while  the  average  export  from  1822  to  1830 
had  been  about  $400,000 ;  and  its  amount  in  1831  had 
been  $2,089,766,  in  1832,  $1,730,571.  From  1830  to 
1837,  both  years  inclusive,  although  the  imports  from  all 
countries  of  general  merchandise  exceeded  the  exports 
by  $140,700,000,  there  was  no  counter  movement  of 
specie.  The  imports  of  specie  from  all  countries  during 
these  years  exceeded  the  exports  by  the  comparatively 


252  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

enormous  sum  of  $44,700,000.  The  foreigners  there 
fore  took  pay  for  their  goods,  not  only  in  our  raw 
materials,  but  in  part  also  in  our  investments  or  rather 
our  speculations,  and  sent  these  vast  quantities  of  moneys 
besides.  So  our  good  fortune  fired  the  imaginations  of 
even  the  dull  Europeans.  They  helped  to  feed  and 
clothe  us  that  we  might  experiment  with  Aladdin's  lamp. 

The  price  of  public  lands  was  fixed  by  law  at  $1.25 
an  acre  ;  and  they  were  open  to  any  purchaser,  without 
the  wholesome  limits  of  acreage  and  the  restraint  to  actual 
settlers  which  were  afterwards  established.  Here  then 
was  a  commodity  whose  price  to  wholesale  purchasers 
did  not  rise,  and  the  very  commodity  by  which  so  many 
fortunes  had  been  made.  In  public  lands,  therefore,  the 
fury  of  money-getting,  the  boastful  confidence  in  the 
future  of  the  country,  reached  their  climax.  From  1820 
to  1829  the  annual  sales  had  averaged  less  than  $1,300,- 
000,  in  1829  being  $1,517,175.  But  in  1830  they  ex 
ceeded  $2,300,000,  in  1831  $3,200,000,  in  1832  $2,- 
600,000,  in  1833  $3,900,000,  and  in  1834  $4,800,000. 
In  1835  they  suddenly  mounted  to  $14,757,600,  and  in 
1 836  to  $24,877,179.  In  his  messages  of  1829  and  1830 
Jackson  not  unreasonably  treated  the  moderate  increase 
in  the  sales  as  a  proof  of  increasing  prosperity.  In  1831 
his  congratulations  were  hushed ;  but  in  1835  he  again 
saw,  even  in  the  abnormal  sales*  of  that  year,  only  ampler 
proof  of  ampler  prosperity.  In  1836  he  at  last  saw  that 
tremendous  speculation  was  the  true  significance  of  the^ 
enormous  increase.  Prices  of  course  went  up.  Every 
body  thought  himself  richer  and  his  labor  worth  more. 

week  after  Van  Buren's  inauguration  a  meeting  was 
held  in  the  City  Hall  Park  in  New  York  to  protest 
against  high  rents  and  the  high  prices  of  provisions ;  and 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  253 

with   much   discernment   the   cry    went   up,    "No  rag 
money ;  give  us  gold  and  silver  !  " 

There  is  no  longer  dispute  that  the  prostration  of  busi 
ness  in  1837,  and  for  several  years  afterward,  was  the 
perfectly  natural  result  of  the  speculation  which  had 
gone  before.  The  absurd  denunciations  of  Van  Buren 
by  the  most  eminent  of  the  Whigs  for  not  ending  the 
crisis  by  governmental  interference  are  no  longer  re 
spected.  But  it  is  still  fancied  that  the  speculation  itself 
was  caused  by  one  financial  blunder,  and  the  crisis  imme 
diately  occasioned  by  another  financial  blunder,  of  Jack-, 
son.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  deposits  of  treasury 
moneys  in  fifty  state  banks1  instead  of  in  the  United 
States  Bank  and  its  twenty  and  more  branches,  which 
began  in  the  fall  of  1833,  aided  the  tendency  to  specu 
lation.  But  this  aid  was  at  the  most  a  slight  matter. 
The  impression  has  been  sedulously  created  that  these 
state  banks,  the  "  pet  banks,"  were  doubtful  institutions. 
There  seems  little  reason  to  doubt  that  in  general  they 
were  perfectly  sound  and  reputable  institutions,  with 
which  the  government  moneys  would  be  quite  as  safe  as 
with  the  United  States  Bank.  It  is  clear  that  if  the 
1  The  Treasurer's  statement  for  August,  1837,  gave  eighty-four 
deposit  banks.  But  of  these,  nine  had  less  than  $5,000  each  on 
deposit,  six  from  $5,000  to  $10,000,  and  eight  from  $10,000  to 
$20,000.  Fourteen  had  from  $50,000  to  $100,000  each.  Only 
twenty-nine  had  more  than  $100,000  each.  It  is  not  unfair  to 
speak  of  the  deposits  as  being  substantially  in  fifty  banks. 

The  enormous  land  sales  at  the  Southwest  had  placed  a  most 
disproportionate  amount  of  money  in  banks  in  that  part  of  the 
country.  John  Quincy  Adams  seemed,  but  with  little  reason, 
to  consider  this  an  intentional  discrimination  against  the  North. 
It  is  quite  probable  that,  if  the  deposits  had  been  in  one  na 
tional  bank,  the  peculiarly  excessive  strain  at  that  point  would 
have  been  modified.  But  this  was  no  great  factor  in  the  crisis. 


254  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

latter  Bank  were  not  to  be  rechartered,  the  deposits 
should,  without  regard  to  the  accusations  of  political 
meddling  brought  against  it,  have  been  removed  some 
time  in  advance  of  its  death  in  March,  1836.  At  best 
it  is  matter  of  doubtful  speculation  whether  the  United 
States  Bank  under  Biddle's  direction  would,  in  1834, 
1835,  and  1836,  while  the  government  deposits  were 
enormously  increasing,  have  behaved  with  much  greater 
prudence  and  foresight  than  did  the  state  deposit  banks. 
So  far  as  actual  experience  helps  us,  the  doubt  might 
well  be  solved  in  the  negative.  The  United  States 
Bank,  when  its  federal  charter  lapsed,  obtained  a* char 
ter  from  Pennsylvania,  continuing  under  the  same  man 
agement  ;  and  is  said,  and  possibly  with  truth,  to  have 
entered  upon  its  new  career  with  a  great  surplus.  But 
it  proved  no  stronger  than  the  state  banks  in  1837  ;  it 
obstructed  resumption  in  1838  ;  it  suspended  again  in 
1839,  while  the  eastern  banks  stood  firm  ;  and  in  1841 
it  went  to  pieces  in  disgraceful  and  complete  disaster. 

The  enormous  extension  of  bank  credits  during  the 
three  years  before  the  break-down  in  1837  was  rather 
the  symptom  than  the  cause  of  the  disease.  The  fever 
of  speculation  was  in  the  veins  of  the  community  before 
"  kiting  "  began.  Bank  officers  dwelt  in  the  same  at 
mosphere  as  did  other  Americans,  and  their  sanguine 
extravagance  in  turn  stimulated  the  universal  temper 
of  speculation.  The  order  of  causes  was  in  reality  this  : 
When  the  United  States  Bank  lost  the  government 
deposits,  late  in  1833,  they  amounted  to  a  little  less  than 
$10,000,000.  On  January  1,  1835,  more  than  a  year 
after  the  state  banks  took  the  deposits,  they  had  in 
creased  to  a  little  more  than  $10,000,000.  But  the 
public  debt  being  then  paid  and  the  outgo  of  money 


CRISIS    OF  1837.  255 

thus  checked,  the  deposits  had  by  January  1,  1836, 
reached  $25,000,000,  and  by  June  1, 1836,  $41,500,000. 
This  enormous  advance  represented  the  sudden  increase 
in  the  sales  of  public  lands,  which  were  paid  for  in 
bank  paper,  which  in  turn  formed  the  bulk  of  the  gov 
ernment  deposits.  The  deposits  were  with  only  a  small 
part  of  the  six  hundred  and  more  state  banks  then  in 
existence.  But  the  increase  in  the  sales  of  public  lands 
was  the  result  of  all  the  organic  causes  and  of  all  the 
long  train  of  events  which  had  seated  the  fever  of  spec 
ulation  so  profoundly  in  the  American  character  of  the 
day.  To  those  causes  and  events  must  ultimately  be 
ascribed  the  extension  of  bank  credits  so  far  as  it  im 
mediately  arose  out  of  the  increase  of  government 
deposits.  Nor  is  there  any  sufficient  reason  to  suppose 
that  if  the  deposits,  instead  of  being  in  fifty  state  banks, 
had  remained  in  the  United  States  Bank  and  its 
branches,  the  tendency  to  speculation  would  have  been 
less.  The  influences  which  surrounded  that  Bank  were 
the  very  influences  most  completely  subject  to  the  popu 
lar  mania. 

But  the  increase  of  government  deposits  was  only 
fuel  added  to  the  flames.  The  craze  for  banks  and 
credits  was  unbounded  before  the  removal  of  the  deposits 
had  taken  place,  and  before  their  great  increase  could 
have  had  serious  effect.  Between  1830  and  January  1, 
1834,  the  banking  capital  of  the  United  States  had  risen 
from  $61,000,000  to  about  $200,000,000  ;  the  loans  and 
discounts  of  the  banks  from  $200,000,000  to  $324,- 
000,000;  and  their  note  circulation  from  $61,000,000 
to  $95,000,000.  The  increase  from  January  1, 1834,  to 
January  1,  1836,  was  even  more  rapid,  the  banking 
capital  advancing  in  the  two  years  to  $251,000,000,  the 


256  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

loans  and  discounts  to  $457,000,000,  and  the  note  circu 
lation  to  $140,000,000.  But  there  was  certainty  of  dis 
aster  in  the  abnormal  growth  from  1830  to  1834.  The 
insanity  of  speculation  was  in  ample  though  unobserved 
control  of  the  country  while  Nicholas  Biddle  still  con 
trolled  the  deposits,  and  was  certain  to  reach  a  climax 
whether  they  stayed  with  him  or  went  elsewhere. 

It  is  difficult  rightly  to  apportion  among  the  states 
men  and  politicians  of  the  time  so  much  of  blame  for 
the  mania  of  speculation  as  must  go  to  that  body  of 
men.  They  had  all  drunk  in  the  national  intoxication 
over  American  success  and  growth.  But  if  we  pass 
from  the  greater  and  deeper  causes  to  the  lesser  though 
more  obvious  ones,  it  is  impossible  not  to  visit  the 
greater  measure  of  blame  upon  the  statesmen  who 
resisted  reduction  of  taxation,  which  would  have  left 
money  in  the  pockets  of  those  who  earned  it,  and  not 
collected  it  in  one  great  bank  with  many  branches  or  in 
fifty  lesser  banks  ;  upon  the  statesmen  who  insisted  that 
the  government  ought  to  aid  commercial  ventures  by 
encouraging  the  loans  to  traders  of  its  own  moneys  held 
in  the  deposit  banks  ;  upon  the  statesmen  who  promoted 
the  dangerous  scheme  of  distributing  the  surplus  among 
the  states  instead  of  abolishing  the  surplus.  As  the 
condemnation  of  public  men  in  the  wrong  must  be  pro 
portioned  somewhat  to  the  distinction  of  their  positions 
and  the  greatness  of  their  natural  gifts,  this  larger  share 
of  blame  must  go  chiefly  to  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry 
Clay.  At  the  head  of  their  associates,  they  had  re 
sisted  the  reduction  of  taxation.  In  his  speech  on  the 
tariff  bill  of  1832  Clay  said,  with  the  exuberance  so 
delightful  to  minds  of  easy  discipline,  that  our  resources 
should  "not  be  hoarded  and  hugged  with  a  miser's 


CRJSIS  OF  1837.  257 

embrace,  but  liberally  used."  They  insisted  upon  freely 
lending  the  public  moneys.  In  his  speech  on  the  distri 
bution  of  the  surplus,  Webster  urged  that  the  number  of 
the  deposit  banks  k'  be  so  far  increased  that  each  may 
regard  that  portion  of  the  public  treasure  which  it  may 
receive  as  an  increase  of  its  effective  deposits,  to  be 
used,  like  other  moneys  in  deposit,  as  a  basis  of  dis 
count,  to  a  just  and  proper  extent."  The  public  money 
was  locked  up,  he  declared,  instead  of  aiding  the  general 
business  of  the  country.  Nor  after  this  was  he  ashamed 
in  1838  to  condemn  Jackson's  secretary  of  the  treasury 
for  advising  the  new  deposit  banks,  as  he  had  himself 
thus  advised  them,  "to  afford  increased  facilities  to 
commerce."  If,  indeed,  Congress  would  not  take  steps 
to  keep  a  government  surplus  out  of  the  banks  and  in 
the  pockets  of  producers,  the  secretary  ought  not  to 
have  been  harshly  judged  for  advising  that  the  money 
go  out  into  commerce  rather  than  lie  in  bank  vaults. 

The  distribution  of  the  surplus  among  the  states  by 
the  law  of  1836  was  the  last  and  in  some  respects  the 
worst  of  the  measures  which  aided  and  exaggerated  the 
tendency  to  speculation.  By  this  bill,  all  the  money 
above  $5,000,000  in  the  treasury  on  January  1,  1837, 
was  to  be  "  deposited  "  with  the  states  in  four  quarterly 
installments  commencing  on  that  day.  According  to  the 
law  the  "  deposit  "  was  but  a  loan  to  the  states  ;  but,  as 
Clay  declared,  not  "a  single  member  of  either  house 
imagined  that  a  dollar  would  ever  be  recalled."  It  was 
in  truth  a  mere  gift.  Clay's  triumphant  ridicule  of  the 
opposition  to  this  measure  has  already  been  mentioned. 
Webster  in  sounding  periods  declared  his  "  deep  and 
earnest  conviction  "  of  the  propriety  of  the  stupendous 
folly.  He  did  not,  indeed,  defend  the  general  system  of 


258  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

making  the  federal  government  a  tax-gatherer  for  the 
states.  But  this  one  distribution  would,  he  said  in  his 
speech  of  May  31,  1836,  "  remove  that  severe  and  al 
most  unparalleled  pressure  for  money  which  is  now  dis 
tressing  and  breaking  down  the  industry,  the  enterprise, 
and  even  the  courage  of  the  commercial  community." 
The  Whig  press  declared  that  a  congressman  who  could 
for  mere  party  reasons  vote  against  a  measure  which 
would  bring  so  much  money  into  his  state,  must  be  "  far 
gone  in  political  hardihood  as  well  as  depravity ;  "  and 
that  "  to  the  Republican-Whig  party  alone  are  the  states 
indebted  for  the  benefits  arising  from  the  distribution." 
William  H.  Seward,  two  years  before  and  two  years 
later  the  Whig  candidate  for  governor  of  New  York, 
said  the  proposal  was  "noble  and  just."  The  meas 
ure  passed  the  senate  with  six  Democratic  votes  against 
it,  among  them  the  vote  of  Silas  Wright,  then  probably 
closer  than  any  other  senator  to  Van  Buren.  Jack 
son  yielded  to  the  bill  what  in  his  message  in  De 
cember  of  the  same  year  he  called  "  a  reluctant  ap 
proval."  He  then  gave  at  length  very  clear  reasons  for 
his  reluctance,  but  none  for  his  approval.  He  declared 
that  "  improvident  expenditure  of  money  is  the  parent 
of  profligacy,"  and  that  no  intelligent  and  virtuous  com 
munity  would  consent  to  raise  a  surplus  for  the  mere 
purpose  of  dividing  it.  In  his  first  message,  indeed, 
Jackson  had  called  the  distribution  among  the  states 
"  the  most  safe,  just,  and  federal  disposition  "  of  the  sur 
plus.  But  his  views  upon  this,  as  upon  other  subjects, 
had  changed  during  the  composition  of  the  Democratic 
creed  which  went  on  during  the  early  years  of  his  ad 
ministration.  His  second  message  rehearsed  at  length 
the  objections  to  the  distribution,  though  affecting  to 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  259 

meet  them.  In  his  third  message  he  recommended  the 
abolition  of  unnecessary  taxation,  not  the  distribution  of 
its  proceeds ;  and  in  1832  he  made  his  explicit  declara 
tion  that  duties  should  be  "  reduced  to  the  revenue 
standard."  Benton  says  it  was  understood  that  in 
1836  some  of  Van  Buren's  friends  urged  Jackson  to  ap 
prove  the  bill,  lest  a  veto  of  so  popular  a  measure  might 
bring  a  Democratic  defeat.  There  must  have  been  some 
reason  unrelated  to  the  merit  of  the  measure.  But 
whatever  the  opinions  of  Van  Buren's  friends,  he  took 
care  before  the  election  to  make  known  unequivocally, 
in  the  Sherrod  Williams  letter  already  quoted,  his  dis 
like  of  this  piece  of  demagogy.  From  the  passage  of 
the  deposit  bill  in  June,  1836,  until  the  crash  in  1837, 
this  superb  donation  of  thirty-seven  millions  was  before 
the  enraptured  and  deluded  vision  of  the  country.  Over 
nine  millions  a  quarter  to  be  poured  into  "improve 
ments  "  or  loaned  to  the  needy,  —  what  a  luscious  pros 
pect  !  The  lesson  is  striking  and  wholesome,  and  ought 
not  to  be  forgotten,  that,  when  the  land  was  in  the  very 
midst  of  these  largesses,  the  universal  bankruptcy  set  in. 
During  1835  and  1836  there  were  omens  of  the  com 
ing  storm.  Some  perceived  the  rabid  character  of  the 
speculative  fever.  William  L.  Marcy,  governor  of  New 
York,  in  his  message  of  January,  1836,  answering  the 
dipsomaniac  cry  for  more  banks,  declared  that  an  un 
regulated  spirit  of  speculation  had  taken  capital  out  of 
the  state  ;  but  that  the  amount  so  transferred  bore  no 
comparison  to  the  enormous  speculations  in  stocks  and 
in  real  property  within  the  state.  Lands  near  the  cities 
and  villages  of  the  state  had  risen  several  hundred  per 
cent,  in  value,  and  were  sold,  not  to  be  occupied  by  the 
buyers,  but  to  be  sold  again  at  higher  prices.  The  pas- 


260  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

sion  for  speculation  prevailed  to  an  extent  before  un 
known,  not  only  among  capitalists,  but  among  merchants, 
who  abstracted  capital  from  their  business  for  land  and 
stock  speculations  and  then  resorted  to  the  banks.  The 
warning  was  treated  contemptuously ;  but  before  the 
year  was  out  the  federal  administration  also  became 
anxious,  and  the  increase  in  land  sales  no  longer  signi 
fied  to  Jackson  an  increasing  prosperity.  The  master 
hand  which  drew  the  economic  disquisition  in  his  mes 
sage  of  1836  pointed  to  these  sales  as  the  effects  of  the 
extension  of  bank  credit  and  of  the  over-issue  of  bank 
paper.  The  banks,  it  was  declared,  had  lent  their  notes 
as  "  mere  instruments  to  transfer  to  speculators  the  most 
valuable  public  land,  and  pay  the  government  by  a  credit 
on  the  books  of  the  banks."  Each  speculation  had  fur 
nished  means  for  another.  No  sooner  had  one  purchaser 
paid  his  debt  in  the  notes  than  they  were  lent  to  another 
for  a  like  purpose.  The  banks  had  extended  their  busi 
ness  and  their  issues  so  largely  as  to  alarm  considerate 
men.  The  spirit  of  expansion  and  speculation  had  not 
been  confined  to  deposit  banks,  but  had  pervaded  the 
whole  multitude  of  banks  throughout  the  Union,  and  had 
given  rise  to  new  institutions  to  aggravate  the  evil.  So 
Jackson  proceeded  with  his  sound  defense  of  the  famous 
specie  circular,  long  and  even  still  denounced  as  the 
causa  causans  of  the  crisis  of  1837. 

By  this  circular,  issued  on  July  11,  1836,  the  secre 
tary  of  the  treasury  had  required  payment  for  public 
lands  to  be  made  in  specie,  with  an  exception  until  De 
cember  15,  1836,  in  favor  of  actual  settlers  and  actual 
residents  of  the  state  in  which  the  lands  were  sold.  The 
enormous  sales  of  land  in  this  year,  and  the  large  pay 
ments  required  for  them  under  the  circular,  at  once  made 


CRISIS    OF  1837.  261 

the  banks  realize  that  there  ought  to  be  an  actual  physi 
cal  basis  for  their  paper  transactions.  Gold  was  called 
from  the  East  to  the  banks  at  the  West  to  make  the  land 
payments.  Into  the  happy  exaltation  of  unreal  transac 
tions  was  now  plunged  that  harsh  demand  for  real  value 
which  sooner  or  later  must  always  come.  The  demand 
was  passed  on  from  one  to  another,  and  its  magnitude 
and  peremptoriness  grew  rapidly.  The  difference  be 
tween  paper  and  gold  became  plainer  and  plainer. 
Nature's  vital  and  often  hidden  truth  that  value  depends 
upon  labor  could  no  longer  be  kept  secret  by  a  few  wise 
men.  The  suspicion  soon  arose  that  there  was  not  real 
and  available  value  to  meet  the  demands  of  nominal 
value.  The  suspicion  was  soon  bruited  among  the  less 
as  well  as  the  more  wary.  Every  man  rushed  to  his 
bank  or  his  debtor,  crying,  "  Pay  me  in  value,  not  in 
promises  to  pay  ;  there  is,  I  at  last  see,  a  difference  be 
tween  them."  But  the  banks  and  debtors  had  no  avail 
able  value,  but  only  its  paper  semblances.  Every  man 
found  that  what  he  wanted  his  neighbors  did  not  have 
to  give  him,  and  what  he  had  his  neighbors  did  not 
want. 

This  is  hardly  an  appropriate  place  to  attempt  an 
analysis  of  the  elements  of  a  commercial  crisis.  But  it 
is  not  possible  rightly  to  estimate  Van  Buren's  moral 
courage  and  keen-sighted  wisdom  in  meeting  the  terrible 
pressure  of  1837  without  appreciating  what  it  was  which 
had  really  happened.  The  din  of  the  disputes  over  the 
refusal  to  recharter  the  bank,  over  the  removal  of  the 
deposits,  over  the  refusal  to  pay  the  last  installment  of 
the  distribution  among  the  states,  and  over  the  specie 
circular,  resounds  even  to  our  own  time.  To  many  the 
crisis  seemed  merely  a  financial  or  even  a  great  bank- 


262  MARTIN  VAN  BUREX. 

ing  episode.  Many  friends  of  the  administration  loudly 
cried  that  the  disaster  arose  from  the  treachery  of  the 
banks  in  suspending.  Many  of  its  enemies  saw  only  the 
normal  fruit  of  administrative  blunders,  first  in  reckless 
ness,  and  last  in  heartless  indifference.  To  most  Ameri 
cans,  whatever  their  differences,  the  explanation  of  this 
profound  and  lasting  disturbance  seemed  to  lie  in  the 
machinery  of  finance,  rather  than  in  the  deeper  facts  of 
the  physical  wealth  and  power  of  the  trading  classes. 

Speculation  is  sometimes  said  to  be  universal ;  and 
it  was  never  nearer  universality  than  from  1830  to 
1837.  But  speculation  affects  after  all  but  a  small 
part  of  the  community,  —  the  part  engaged  in  trade, 
venture,  new  settlement  or  new  manufacture ;  those 
classes  of  men  the  form  of  whose  work  is  not  established 
by  tradition,  but  is  changing  and  improving  under  the 
spur  of  ingenuity  and  invention,  and  with  whom  imagi 
nation  is  most  powerful  and  fruitful.  These  men  use 
the  surplus  resources  of  the  vastly  greater  number  who 
go  on  through  periods  of  high  prices  and  of  low  prices 
with  their  steady  toil  and  unvaried  production.  In 
our  country  and  in  all  industrial  communities  it  is  to 
the  former  comparatively  small  class  that  chiefly  and 
characteristically  belong  "  good  times  "  and  "  bad 
times,"  panics  and  crises  and  depressions.  It  is  this 
class  which  in  newspapers  and  financial  reviews  becomes 
"the  country."  It  chiefly  supports  the  more  influen 
tial  of  the  clergy,  the  lawyers,  the  editors,  and  others 
of  the  professional  classes.  It  deals  with  the  new  uses 
and  the  accumulations  of  wealth ;  it  almost  monopolizes 
public  attention  ;  it  is  chiefly  and  conspicuously  identi 
fied  with  industrial  and  commercial  changes  and  pro 
gress.  But  if  great  depressions  were  really  as  univer- 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  263 

sal  as  the  rhetoric  of  economists  and  historians  would 
literally  signify,  our  ancestors  fifty  years  ago  must  have 
experienced  a  devastation  such  as  Alaric  is  said  to  have 
brought  to  the  fields  of  Lombardy.  But  this  was  not 
so.  The  processes  of  general  production  went  on  ;  the 
land  was  tilled ;  the  farmer's  work  of  the  year  brought 
about  the  same  amount  of  comfort ;  the  ordinary  me 
chanic  was  not  much  worse  off.  If  some  keen  observer 
from  another  planet  had  in  1835  and  again  later  in 
1837  looked  into  the  dining-rooms  and  kitchens  and 
parlors  of  America,  had  seen  its  citizens  with  their  fami 
lies  going  to  church  of  a  Sunday  morning,  or  watched 
the  tea-parties  of  their  wives,  or  if  he  had  looked  over 
the  fields  and  into  the  shops,  there  would  have  seemed 
to  him  but  slight  difference  between  the  two  years  in  the 
occupations,  the  industry,  or  the  comfort  of  the  people. 
But  if  he  had  stopped  looking  and  begun  to  listen,  he 
would  in  1837  at  once  have  perceived  a  tremendous 
change.  The  great  masses  of  producing  men  would 
have  been  mute,  as  they  usually  are.  But  the  capitalists, 
the  traders,  the  manufacturers,  all  whose  skill,  courage, 
imagination,  and  adventure  made  them  the  leaders  of 
progress,  and  whose  voices  were  the  only  loud,  clear, 
intelligible  voices,  until  there  arose  the  modern  organiza 
tions  of  laboring  men,  —  all  those  who  in  1835  were 
flushed  and  glorious  with  a  royal  money-getting,  —  he 
would  now  have  heard  crying  in  frenzy  and  desperation. 
It  is  not  meant  to  disparage  the  importance  of  this  smaller 
but  louder  body  of  men,  or  to  underrate  the  disaster  which 
they  suffered.  In  proportion  to  their  numbers,  they 
were  vastly  the  most  important  part  of  the  community. 
If  they  were  prostrated,  there  must  not  only  suffer  the 
body  of  clerks,  operatives,  and  laborers  immediately 


264  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

engaged  in  their  enterprises,  and  who  may  for  economi 
cal  purposes  be  ranked  with  them  ;  but  later  on,  the 
masses  of  the  community  must  to  a  real  extent  feel  the 
interruption  of  progress  which  has  overtaken  that  section 
of  the  community  to  which  are  committed  the  charac 
teristic  operations  of  material  progress  ;  and  whether 
through  the  fault  or  the  misfortune  of  that  section,  the 
injury  is  alike  serious.  A  wise  ruler,  in  touching  the 
finances  of  his  country,  will  forget  none  of  this.  He  will 
look  through  all  the  agitation  of  bankers  and  traders 
and  manufacturers,  the  well-voiced  leaders  of  the  richer 
classes  of  men,  to  the  far  vaster  processes  of  industry 
carried  on  by  men  who  are  silent,  and  whose  silent  in 
dustry  will  go  on  whatever  devices  of  currency  or  bank 
ing  may  be  adopted.  This  wisdom  Van  Buren  now 
showed  in  an  exalted  degree. 

The  disaster  which  in  1837  overtook  so  large  and  so 
important  a  part  of  the  community  was,  in  its  ultimate 
nature,  not  difficult  to  comprehend.  There  had  not  been 
one  equal  and  universal  increase  in  nominal  values. 
Such  an  increase  would  not  have  produced  the  crisis. 
But  while  the  great  mass  of  the  national  industry  went 
on  in  channels  and  with  methods  and  rates  substantially 
undisturbed,  there  took  place  an  enormous  and  specula 
tive  advance  of  prices  in  the  cities  where  were  carried  on 
the  operations  of  important  traders  and  the  promoters 
of  enterprises,  and  in  the  very  new  country  where  these 
enterprises  found  their  material.  When  a  new  canal 
or  road  was  built,  or  a  new  line  of  river  steamers 
launched  and  an  unsettled  country  made  accessible,  sev 
eral  things  inevitably  happened  in  the  temper  produced 
by  the  jubilant  observation  of  the  past.  There  was  not 
only  drawn  from  the  ordinary  industry  of  the  country 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  265 

the  wealth  necessary  to  build  the  canal  or  road  or  steam 
ers;  but  the  country  thus  rendered  accessible  seemed 
suddenly  to  gain  a  value  measured  by  the  best  results 
of  former  settlements,  however  exceptional,  and  by  the 
most  sanguine  hopes  for  the  future.  The  owners  of  the 
prairies  and  woods  and  river  bottoms  became  suddenly 
rich,  as  a  miner  in  Idaho  becomes  rich  when  he  strikes 
a  true  fissure  vein.  The  owners  of  the  canal  or  road 
or  line  of  steamers  found  their  real  investment  at  once 
multiplied  in  dollars  by  the  value  of  the  country  whose 
trade  they  were  to  enjoy  ;  for,  new  as  that  value  was,  it 
seemed  assured.  Like  investments  were  made  in  banks, 
and  in  every  implement  of  direct  or  indirect  use  in  the 
conduct  of  industries  which  seemed  to  belong  as  a  neces 
sity  to  the  new  value  of  the  land.  The  numerous  sales 
of  lands  and  of  stocks  in  roads  or  canals  or  banks  at 
rapidly  advancing  prices  did  not  alter  the  nature,  al 
though  they  vastly  augmented  the  effect,  of  what  was 
happening.  The  so-called  "  business  classes  "  through 
out  the  country,  related  as  they  quickly  became,  under 
the  great  impetus  of  the  national  hopefulness  and  vanity, 
to  the  new  lands,  to  the  new  cities  and  towns  and  farms, 
and  to  the  means  of  reaching  them  and  of  providing 
them  with  the  necessities  and  comforts  of  civilization, 
found  their  wealth  rapidly  and  largely  increasing.  Then 
naturally  enough  followed  the  spending  of  money  in 
personal  luxury.  This  meant .  the  withdrawal  of  labor 
in  the  older  part  of  the  country  from  productive  work, 
for  which  the  country  was  fitted,  to  work  which,  whether 
suitable  or  not,  was  unproductive.  The  unproductive 
labor  was  paid,  as  the  employers  supposed,  from  the 
new  value  lately  created  at  the  West.  So  capital,  that 
is,  accumulated  labor,  was  first  spent  in  improvements 


266  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

in  the  new  country,  and  then,  and  probably  in  a  far 
greater  amount,  spent  in  more  costly  food,  clothes,  equi 
page,  and  other  luxuries  in  the  older  country.  The 
successive  sales  at  advancing  prices  simply  increased  the 
sense  of  new  wealth,  and  augmented  more  and  more 
this  destructive  consumption  of  the  products  of  labor, 
or  the  destructive  diversion  of  labor  from  productive 
to  unproductive  activity  at  the  East  by  the  well-to-do 
classes. 

On  the  eve  of  the  panic  the  new  wealth,  whose  seem 
ing  possession  apparently  justified  this  destructive  con 
sumption  or  diversion  to  luxury  of  physical  value,  was 
primarily  represented  by  titles  to  lands,  stocks  in  land, 
canal,  turnpike,  railroad,  transportation,  or  banking  com 
panies,  and  the  notes  issued  by  banks  or  traders  or 
speculators.  The  value  of  these  stocks  and  notes 
depended  upon  the  fruitfulness  of  the  lands  or  canals  or 
roads  or  steamboat  lines.  Prices  of  many  -commodities 
had,  indeed,  been  enhanced  by  speculation  beyond  all 
proper  relation  to  other  commodities,  measured  by  the 
ultimate  standard  of  the  quantity  and  quality  of  labor. 
But  important  as  was  this  element,  it  was  subordinate 
to  the  apparent  creation  of  wealth  at  the  West. 

Before  the  panic  broke,  it  began  to  appear  that  mere 
surveys  of  wild  tracts  into  lots  made  neither  towns  nor 
cities ;  that  canals  and  roads  arid  steamboats  did  not 
hew  down  trees  or  drain  morasses  or  open  the  glebe. 
The  basis  of  the  operations  of  capitalists  and  promoters 
and  venturers  in  new  fields,  if  those  operations  were  to 
have  real  success,  must  lie  in  the  masses  of  strong  and 
skillful  arms  of  men  of  labor.  The  operations  were 
fruitless  until  there  came  a  population  well  sinewed  and 
gladly  ready  for  arduous  toil.  In  1836  and  1837  the 


CRISIS    OF  1837. 


267 


operators  found  that  there  was  no  longer  a  population 
to  give  enduring  life  to  their  new  operations.  They 
had  far  outstripped  all  the  immediate  or  even  the  nearly 
promised  movements  of  settlers.  Men,  however  hardy, 
preferred  to  work  within  an  easier  reach  of  the  physical 
and  social  advantages  of  settlements  already  made,  until 
they  could  see  the  superior  fruitfulness  of  labor  further 
on.  The  new  cities  and  towns  and  farms  and  the  means 
of  reaching  them  would  be  mere  paper  assets  until  an 
army  of  settlers  was  ready  to  enter  in  and  make  them 
sources  of  actual  physical  wealth.  But  the  army  stopped 
far  short  of  the  new  Edens  and  metropolises.  There 
was  no  creation  among  them  of  the  actual  wealth,  the 
return  of  physical  labor,  to  make  good  and  real  the 
popular  semblances  of  wealth,  upon  the  faith  of  which  in 
the  older  part  of  the  country  had  arisen  new  methods 
of  business  and  habits  of  living.  The  withdrawal  of 
actual  wealth  from  the  multifarious  treasuries  of  capital 
and  industry,  to  meet  the  expense  of  the  improvements 
at  the  West  and  the  increased  luxury  at  the  East,  had 
reached  a  point  where  the  pressure  caused  by  the  defi 
ciency  of  physical  wealth  was  too  great  for  the  hopeful 
ness  or  credulity  of  those  who  had  been  surrendering 
that  wealth  upon  the  promises  of  successful  and  opulent 
settlements  at  the  West.  Nor  was  all  this  confined  to 
ventures  in  the  new  states.  Almost  every  Eastern  city 
had  a  suburb  where  with  slight  differences  all  the  phe 
nomena  of  speculation  were  as  real  and  obvious  as  in 
Illinois  or  Mississippi. 

Jackson's  specie  circular  toppled  over  the  house  of 
cards,  which  at  best  could  have  stood  but  little  longer. 
In  place  of  bank-notes,  which  symbolized  the  expecta 
tions  and  hopes  of  the  owners  of  new  towns  and  im- 


268  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

provements,  the  United  States  after  July,  1836,  required 
from  all  but  actual  settlers  gold  and  silver  for  lands. 
An  insignificant  part  of  the  sales  had  been  lately  made 
to  settlers.  They  were  chiefly  made  to  speculators. 
The  public  lands,  which  sold  invariably  at  $1.25  an  acre, 
were  enormously  magnified  in  nominal  value  the  instant 
the  speculators  owned  them.  Paper  money  was  freely 
issued  upon  these  estimates  of  value,  to  be  again  paid  to 
the  government  for  more  lands  at  $1.25.  But  now  gold 
and  silver  must  be  found  ;  and  nothing  but  actual  labor 
could  find  gold  and  silver.  A  further  stream  of  true 
wealth  was  summoned  from  the  East,  already  denuded, 
as  it  was,  of  all  the  surplus  it  had  ready  to  be  invested 
upon  mere  expectation.  Enormous  rates  were  now  paid 
for  real  money.  But  of  the  real  money  necessary  to 
make  good  the  paper  bubble  promises  of  the  speculators 
not  one  tenth  part  really  existed.  Banks  could  neither 
make  their  debtors  pay  in  gold  and  silver,  nor  pay  their 
own  notes  in  gold  and  silver.  So  they  suspended. 

The  great  and  long  concealed  devastation  of  physical 
wealth  and  of  the  accumulation  of  legitimate  labor,  by 
premature  improvements  and  costly  personal  living, 
became  now  quickly  apparent.  Fancied  wealth  sank 
out  of  sight.  Paper  symbols  of  new  cities  and  towns, 
canals  and  roads,  were  not  only  without  value,  but  they 
were  now  plainly  seen  to  be  so.  Rich  men  became  poor 
men.  The  prices  of  articles  in  which  there  had  been 
speculation  sank  in  the  reaction  far  below  their  true 
value.  The  industrious  and  the  prudent,  who  had  given 
their  labor  and  their  real  wealth  for  paper  promises  issued 
upon  the  credit  of  seemingly  assured  fortunes,  suffered 
at  once  with  men  whose  fortunes. had  never  been  any 
thing  better  than  the  delusions  of  their  hope  and  imagi 
nation. 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  269 

It  is  now  plain  enough  that  to  recover  from  this  crisis 
was  a  work  of  physical  reparation  to  which  must  go 
time,  industry,  and  frugality.  There  was  folly  in  every 
effort  to  retain  and  use  as  valuable  assets  the  invest 
ments  in  companies  and  banks  whose  usefulness,  if  it 
had  ever  begun,  was  now  ended.  There  was  folly  in 
every  effort  to  conceal  from  the  world  by  words  of  hope 
fulness  the  fact  that  the  imagined  values  in  new  cities 
and  garden  lands  had  disappeared  in  a  rude  disenchant 
ment  as  complete  as  that  of  Abon- Hassan  in  the  Thou 
sand  and  One  Nights,  or  that  of  Sly,  the  tinker,  left  un 
told  in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  Their  sites  were  no 
more  than  wild  lands,  whose  value  must  wait  the  march 
of  American  progress,  fast  enough  indeed  to  the  rest  of 
the  world,  but  slow  as  the  snail  to  the  wild  pacing  of 
the  speculators.  Every  pretense  of  a  politician,  whether 
in  or  out  of  the  senate  chamber,  that  the  government 
could  by  devices  of  financiering  avoid  this  necessity  of 
long  physical  repair,  was  either  folly  or  wickedness. 
And  of  this  folly  or  even  wickedness  there  was  no  lack 
in  the  anxious  spring  and  summer  of  1837. 

There  had  already  occurred  in  many  quarters  that 
misery  which  is  borne  by  the  humbler  producers  of 
wealth  not  for  their  own  consumption,  but  simply  for 
exchange,  whose  earnings  are  not  increased  to  meet  the 
inflation  of  prices  upon  which  traders  and  speculators 
are  accumulating  apparent  fortunes  and  spending  them 
as  if  they  were  real.  On  February  14,  1837,  several 
thousand  people  met  in  front  of  the  City  Hall  in  New 
York  under  a  call  of  men  whom  the  "  Commercial 
Advertiser"  described  as  "Jackson  Jacobins."  The  call 
was  headed  :  "  Bread,  meat,  rent,  fuel !  Their  prices 
must  come  down  !  "  It  invited  the  presence  of  "  all 


270  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

friends  of  humanity  determined  to  resist  monopolists 
and  extortionists."  A  very  respectable  meeting  about 
high  prices  had  been  held  two  or  three  weeks  before  at 
the  Broadway  Tabernaeie.  The  meeting  in  the  City 
Hall  Park,  with  a  mixture  of  wisdom  and  folly,  urged 
the  prohibition  of  bank  -  notes  under  $100,  and  called 
for  gold  and  silver  ;  and  then  denounced  landlords  and 
dealers  in  provisions.  The  excitement  of  the  meeting 
was  followed  by  a  riot,  in  which  a  great  flour  warehouse 
was  gutted.  The  rioters  were  chiefly  foreigners  and 
few  in  number  ;  nor  were  the  promoters  of  the  meeting 
involved  in  the  riot.  The  military  were  called  out ; 
and  Eli  Hart  &  Co.,  the  unfortunate  flour  merchants, 
issued  a  card  pointing  out  with  grim  truth  "  that  the 
destruction  of  the  article  cannot  have  a  tendency  to 
reduce  the  price." 

The  distribution  of  the  treasury  surplus  to  the  states 
precipitated  the  crash.  The  first  quarter's  payment  of 
$9,367,000  was  made  on  January  1,  1837.  There  was 
disturbance  in  taking  this  large  sum  of  money  from 
the  deposit  banks.  Loans  had  to  be  called  in,  and  the 
accommodation  to  business  men  lessened  for  the  time. 
There  was  speculative  disturbance  in  the  receipt  of  the 
moneys  by  the  state  depositories.  There  was  apprehen 
sion  for  the  next  payment  on  April  1,  which  was  accom 
plished  with  still  greater  disturbance,  and  after  the  crisis 
had  begun.  The  calls  for  gold  and  silver,  begun  under 
the  specie  circular,  and  the  disturbances  caused  by  these 
distributions,  were  increased  by  financial  pressure  in 
England,  whose  money  aids  to  America  were  but  partly 
shown  by  the  shipments  of  gold  and  silver  already  men 
tioned.  The  extravagance  of  living  had  been  shown  in 
foreign  importations  for  consumption  in  luxury,  to  meet 


CRISIS    OF  1837.  271 

which  there  had  gone  varied  promises  to  pay,  and  secu 
rities  whose  true  value  depended  upon  the  true  and  not 
the  apparent  creation  of  wealth  in  America.  Before 
the  middle  of  March  the  money  excitement  at  Man 
chester  was  great ;  and  to  the  United  States  alone,  it 
was  then  declared,  attention  was  directed  for  larger 
remittances  and  for  specie.  The  merchants  of  Liver 
pool  about  the  same  time  sent  a  memorial  to  the  chan 
cellor  of  the  exchequer  saying  "  that  the  distress  of  the 
mercantile  interest  is  intense  beyond  example,  and  that 
it  is  rapidly  extending  to  all  ranks  and  conditions  of  the 
community,  so  as  to  threaten  irretrievable  ruin  in  all 
directions,  involving  the  prudent  with  the  imprudent." 
The  "  London  Times  "  on  April  10,  1837,  said  that  great 
distress  and  pressure  had  been  produced  in  every  branch 
of  national  industry,  and  that  the  calamity  had  never 
been  exceeded. 

The  cry  was  quickly  reechoed  from  America.  Com 
mercial  failures  began  in  New  York  about  April  1. 
By  April  8  ninety-eight  failures  had  occurred  in  that 
city,  five  of  foreign  and  exchange  brokers,  thirty  of  dry- 
goods  jobbers,  sixteen  of  commission  houses,  twenty- 
eight  of  real-estate  speculators,  eight  of  stock  brokers, 
and  six  others.  Three  days  later  the  failures  had 
reached  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight.  Provisions, 
wages,  rents,  everything,  as  the  "  New  York  Herald  "  on 
that  day  announced,  were  coming  down.  Within  a  few 
days  more  the  failures  were  too  numerous  to  be  specially 
noticed  ;  and  before  the  end  of  the  month  the  rest  of  the 
country  was  in  a  like  condition.  The  prostration  in  the 
newer  cotton  states  was  peculiarly  complete.  Their 
staple  was  now  down  to  ten  cents  a  pound  ;  within  a 
year  it  had  been  worth  twenty.  All  other  staples  fell 
enormously  in  price. 


272  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Late  in  April  the  merchants  of  New  York  met.  In 
stead  of  condemning  their  own  folly,  they  resolved,  in  a 
silly  fury,  that  the  disaster  was  due  to  government  in 
terference  with  the  business  and  commercial  operations 
of  the  country  by  requiring  land  to  be  paid  for  in  specie 
instead  of  paper,  to  its  destruction  of  the  bank,  and  to  its 
substitution  of  a  metallic  for  a  credit  currency.  A  com 
mittee  of  fifty,  including  Thomas  Denny,  Henry  Parish, 
Elisha  Riggs,  and  many  others  whose  names  are  still 
honored  in  New  York,  was  appointed  to  remonstrate  with 
the  president.  "  What  constitutional  or  legal  justifica 
tion,"  it  was  seriously  demanded,  "  can  Martin  Van 
Buren  offer  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  for  hav 
ing  brought  upon  them  all  their  present  difficulties  ?  " 
The  continuance  of  the  specie  circular,  they  said,  was 
more  high-handed  tyranny  than  that  which  had  cost 
Charles  I.  his  crown  and  his  head.  On  May  3  the 
committee  visited  Washington  and  told  the  president 
that  their  real  estate  had  depreciated  forty  millions, 
their  stocks  twenty  millions,  their  immense  amounts  of 
merchandise  in  warehouses  thirty  per  cent.  They  pite- 
ously  said  to  him,  "  The  noble  city  which  we  represent 
lies  prostrate  in  despair,  its  credit  blighted,  its  industry 
paralyzed,  and  without  a  hope  beaming  through  the  dark 
ness,  unless  "  —  and  here  we  might  suppose  they  would 
have  added,  "  unless  Americans  at  once  stop  spending 
money  which  has  riot  been  earned,  and  repair  the  ruin 
by  years  of  sensible  industry  and  strict  economy."  But 
the  conclusion  of  the  merchants  was  that  the  darkness 
must  continue  unless  relief  came  from  Washington.  It 
was  unjust,  they  said,  to  attribute  the  evils  to  excessive 
development  of  mercantile  enterprise  ;  they  flowed  in 
stead  from  "that  unwise  system  which  aimed  at  the 


CRISIS   OF  1837.  273 

substitution  of  a  metallic  for  a  paper  currency."     The 
error  of  their  rulers  "  had  produced   a  wider  desolation 
than  the  pestilence  which  depopulated  our  streets,  or  the 
conflagration  which  laid  them  in  ashes."     In  the  opinion 
of  these  sapient  gentlemen  of  business,  it  was  the  re 
quirement   that   the  United  States,  in    selling  western 
lands  to  speculators,  should  be  paid  in  real  and  not  in 
nominal  money,  which   had   prostrated   in  despair  the 
metropolis  of  the  country.     They  asked  for  a  withdrawal 
of  the  specie  circular,  for  a  suspension  of  government 
suits  against  importers  on  bonds  given  for  duties,  for  an 
extra  session  of  Congress  to  pass  Clay's  bill  for  the  dis 
tribution  of  the  land  revenue  among  the  states,  and  for 
the  rechartering  of  the  bank.     Never  did  men  out  of 
their  heads  with  fright  propose  more  foolish  attempts  at 
relief  than  some  of    these.     But    the  folly,  as  will  be 
seen,  seized  statesmen  of  the  widest  experience  as  well 
as    frenzied   merchants.     The    president's    answer  was 
dignified,  but  "  brief  and  explicit."    To  the  insolent  sug 
gestion  that  Jackson's  financial  measures  had  been  more 
destructive  than  fire  or  pestilence,  he  calmly  reminded 
them  that   he    had  made   fully  known,  before  he  was 
elected,  his  own  approval  of  those  measures  ;  that  know 
ing  this  the  people  had  deliberately  chosen  him  ;  and 
that   he  would    still  adhere  to    those    measures.     The 
specie  circular  should  be  neither  repealed  nor  modified. 
Such  indulgence  in  enforcing  custom-house  bonds  would 
be  allowed  as  the  law  permitted.     The  emergency  did 
not,   he    thought,    justify   an    extra    session.     Nicholas 
Biddle  called  on  Van  Buren  ;  and  many  were  disgusted 
that  in  the  presence  of  this  arch  enemy  the  president  re 
mained  "  profoundly  silent  upon  the  great  and  interest 
ing  topics  of  the  day." 


274  MARTIN  VAN   BUREN. 

Van  Buren's  resolution  to  face  the  storm  without 
either  the  aid  or  the  embarrassment  of  the  early  presence 
of  Congress  he  was  soon  compelled  to  abandon.  Within 
a  few  days  of  the  return  of  the  merchants  to  New  York, 
that  city  sent  the  president  an  appalling  reply.  On 
May  10  its  banks  suspended  payment  of  their  notes  in 
coin.  A  few  days  before  some  banks  in  lesser  cities  of 
the  Southwest  had  stopped.  On  the  day  after  the  New 
York  suspension,  the  banks  of  Philadelphia,  Baltimore, 
Albany,  Hartford,  New  Haven,  and  Providence  followed. 
On  the  12th  the  banks  of  Boston  and  Mobile,  on  the 
13th  those  of  New  Orleans,  and  on  the  17th  those  of 
Charleston  and  Cincinnati  fell  in  the  same  crash.  There 
was  now  simply  a  general  bankruptcy.  Men  would  no 
longer  meet  their  promises  to  pay,  because  no  longer 
could  new  paper  promises  pay  off  old  ones.  No  longer 
would  men  surrender  physical  wealth  safely  in  their 
hands  for  the  expectation  of  wealth  to  be  created  by  the 
future  progress  of  the  country.  But  men  with  perfectly 
real  physical  wealth  in  their  storehouses,  which  they 
could  not  themselves  use,  were  also  in  practical  bank 
ruptcy  because  of  their  commercial  debts  most  prudently 
incurred.  The  natural  exchange  of  their  own  goods  for 
goods  which  they  or  their  creditors  might  use  was  ob 
structed  by  the  utter  discredit  of  paper  money,  and  by 
the  almost  complete  disappearance  of  gold  and  silver. 
Extra  sessions  of  state  legislatures  were  called  to  devise 
relief.  The  banks'  suspension  of  specie  payment  in  New 
York  was  within  a  few  days  legalized  by  the  legislature 
of  that  state.  On  May  12  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
directed  government  collectors  themselves  to  keep  public 
moneys  where  the  deposit  banks  had  suspended. 

For  banks  holding  the  public  moneys  sank  with  the 


CRISIS    OF  1837.  275 

others.  And  it  was  this  which  compelled  Van  Buren  in 
one  matter  to  yield  to  the  storm.  On  May  15  he  issued 
a  proclamation  for  an  extra  session  of  Congress  to  meet 
on  the  first  Monday  of  September.  It  would  meet,  the 
proclamation  said,  to  consider  "  great  and  weighty  mat 
ters."  No  scheme  of  relief  was  suggested.  The  locking 
up  of  public  moneys  in  suspended  banks  made  neces 
sary  some  relief  to  the  government  itself.  It  was,  per 
haps,  well  enough  that  excited  and  terrified  people, 
casting  about  for  a  remedy,  should,  until  their  wits  were 
somewhat  restored,  be  soothed  by  assurance  that  the 
great  council  of  the  nation  would,  at  any  rate,  discuss 
the  situation.  Moreover,  it  was  wise  to  secure  time, 
that  most  potent  ally  of  the  statesman.  Within  the 
three  months  and  a  half  to  elapse,  Van  Buren,  like  a 
wise  ruler,  thought  the  true  nature  of  the  calamity 
would  become  more  apparent ;  proposals  of  remedies 
might  be  scrutinized ;  and  thoughtless  or  superficial 
men  might  weary  of  their  own  absurd  proposals,  or  the 
people  might  fully  perceive  their  absurdity. 

During  the  summer  popular  excitement  ran  very 
high  against  the  administration.  The  Whig  papers  de 
clared  it  to  be  "  the  melancholy  truth,  the  awful  truth," 
that  the  administration  did  nothing  to  relieve,  but  every 
thing  to  distress  the  commercial  community.  Abbot 
Lawrence,  one  of  the  richest  and  most  influential  citi 
zens  of  Boston,  told  a  -great  meeting,  on  May  17,  that 
there  was  no  other  people  on  the  face  of  God's  earth 
that  were  so  abused,  cheated,  plundered,  and  trampled 
on  by  their  rulers ;  that  the  government  exacted  impos 
sibilities.  No  overt  act,  he  said,  with  almost  a  sinister 
suggestion,  ought  to  be  committed  until  the  laws  of  self- 
preservation  compelled  a  forcible  resistance ;  but  the 


276  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

time  might  come  when  the  crew  must  seize  the  ship. 
The  friends  of  the  administration  sought,  indeed,  to 
stem  the  tide ;  and  a  series  of  skillfully  devised  popular 
gatherings  was  held,  very  probably  inspired  by  Van 
Buren,  who  highly  estimated  such  organized  appeals  to 
popular  sentiment.  In  Philadelphia  a  great  meeting 
denounced  the  bank  suspensions  and  the  issue  of  small 
notes  as  devices  in  the  interest  of  a  foreign  conspiracy 
to  throw  silver  coin  out  of  circulation  and  export  it  to 
Europe,  to  raise  the  prices  of  necessaries,  and  recom 
mence  a  course  of  gambling  under  the  name  of  specula 
tion  and  trade,  in  which  the  people  must  be  the  victims, 
and  "  the  foreign  and  home  desperadoes  "  the  gainers. 
The  meeting  declared  for  a  metallic  currency.  "  We 
hereby  pledge  our  lives,  if  necessary,"  they  said,  "  for 
the  support  of  the  same."  Later,  on  May  22,  there  was 
in  the  same  city  a  large  gathering  at  Independence 
Square,  which  solemnly  called  upon  the  administration 
"  manfully,  fearlessly,  and  at  all  hazards  to  go  on  collect 
ing  the  public  revenues  and  paying  the  public  dues  in 
gold  and  silver."  Their  forefathers,  who  fought  for  their 
liberties,  the  framers  of  our  Constitution,  the  patriarchs 
whose  memory  they  revered,  were,  with  a  funny  mix 
ture  of  truth  and  falsehood,  declared  to  have  been  hard- 
money  men.  A  week  later,  a  great  meeting  in  Balti 
more  approved  the  specie  circular,  and  urged  its  fearless 
execution,  "  notwithstanding  the  senseless  clamors  of  the 
British  party ;  "  for  the  crisis,  they  said,  was  "  a  strug 
gle  of  the  virtuous  and  industrious  portions  of  the  com 
munity  against  bank  advocates  and  the  enemies  to  good 
morals  and  republicanism."  Protests  were  elsewhere 
made  against  forcing  small  notes  into  circulation.  Pa 
per  had,  however,  to  be  used,  for  there  was  nothing  else. 


CRISIS  OF  1837. 


277 


Barter  must  go  on,  even  upon  the  most  flimsy  tokens. 
In  New  York  one  saw,  as  were  seen  twenty-four  years 
later,  bits  of  paper  like  this :  "  The  bearer  will  be  enti 
tled  to  fifty  cents'  value  in  refreshments  at  the  Auction 
Hotel,  123  and  125  Water  Street.  New  York,  May, 
1837.  Charles  Redabock."  In  Tallahassee  a  commit 
tee  of  citizens  was  appointed  to  print  bank  tickets  for 
purposes  of  change.  In  Easton  the  currency  had  a 
more  specific  basis.  One  of  the  tokens  read  :  "  This 
ticket  will  hold  good  for  a  sheep's  tongue,  two  crackers, 
and  a  glass  of  red-eye." 

When  Congress  assembled,  the  country  had  cried 
itself,  if  not  to  sleep,  at  least  to  seeming  quiet.  The 
sun  had  not  ceased  to  rise  and  set.  Although  merchants 
and  bankers  were  prostrate  with  anxiety  or  even  in  irre 
mediable  ruin  ;  although  thousands  of  clerks  and  labor 
ers  were  out  of  employment  or  earning  absurdly  low 
wages,  —  for  near  New  York  hundreds  of  laborers  were 
rejected  who  applied  for  work  at  four  dollars  a  month 
and  board  ;  although  honest  frontiersmen  found  them 
selves  hopelessly  isolated  in  a  wilderness,  —  for  the 
frontier  had  suddenly  shrunk  far  behind  them,  —  still 
the  harvest  had  been  good,  the  masses  of  men  had  been 
at  work,  and  economy  had  prevailed.  The  desperation 
was  over.  But  there  was  a  profound  melancholy,  from 
which  a  recovery  was  to  come  only  too  soon  to  be 
lasting. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

PRESIDENT.  SUB-TREASURY    BILL. 

VAN  BUREN'S  bearing  in  the  crisis  was  admirable. 
Even  those  who  have  treated  him  with  animosity  or 
contempt  do  not  here  refuse  him  high  praise.  "  In  this 
one  question,"  says  Von  Hoist,  "  he  really  evinced  cour 
age,  firmness,  and  statesmanlike  insight.  .  .  .  Van  Buren 
bore  the  storm  bravely.  He  repelled  all  reproaches 
with  decision,  but  with  no  bitterness.  .  .  .  Van  Buren 
unquestionably  merited  well  of  the  country,  because  he 
refused  his  cooperation,  in  accordance  with  the  guar 
dianship  principle  of  the  old  absolutisms,  to  accustom  the 
people  of  the  Republic  also  to  see  the  government  enter 
as  a  saving  deus  ex  machina  in  every  calamity  brought 
about  by  their  own  fault  and  folly.  .  .  .  Van  Buren 
had  won  a  brilliant  victory  and  placed  his  countrymen 
under  lasting  obligations  to  him."  l 

1  I  cannot  refrain  from  noticing-  here  the  curious  fact  that  Dr. 
Von  Hoist,  after  a  contemptuous  picture  of  Van  Buren  as  a 
mere  verbose,  coarse-grained  politician  given  to  scheming  and  du 
plicity,  was  not  surprised  at  his  meeting-  in  so  lofty  a  spirit  this 
really  great  trial.  For  surely  here,  if  anywhere,  the  essential 
fibre  of  the  man  would  be  discovered.  I  must  also  express  my 
regret  that  this  writer,  to  whom  Americans  owe  very  much, 
should  have  been  content  (althoug-h  in  this  he  has  but  joined 
some  other  historians  of  American  politics)  to  accept  mere  cam 
paign  or  partisan  rumors  which  when  directed  against  other  men, 
have  gone  unnoticed,  but  against  Van  Buren  have  become  the 


EXTRA  SESSION.  279 

Van  Buren  met  the  extra  session  with  a  message 
which  marks  the  zenith  of  his  political  wisdom.  It  is 
one  of  the  greatest  of  American  state  papers.  With 
clear,  unflinching,  and  unanswerable  logic  he  faced  the 
crisis.  There  was  no  effort  to  evade  the  questions  put 
to  him,  or  to  divert  public  attention  from  the  true  issue. 
The  government  could  not,  he  showed,  help  people  earn 
their  living ;  but  it  could  refuse  to  aid  the  deception 
that  paper  was  gold,  and  the  delusion  that  value  could 
arise  without  labor.  The  masterly  argument  seems  long 
to  a  sauntering  reader  ;  but  it  treated  a  difficult  question 
which  had  to  be  answered  by  the  multitudes  of  a  democ 
racy  many  of  whom  were  pinched  and  excited  by  per 
sonal  distresses  and  anxiety  and  who  were  sure  to  read 
it.  Few  episodes  in  our  political  history  give  one  more 
exalted  appreciation  of  the  good  sense  of  the  American 
masses,  than  that,  in  this  stress  of  national  suffering,  a 
skillful  politician  should  have  appealed  to  them,  not 
even  sweetening  the  truth,  but  resisting  with  direct  and 
painful  sobriety  their  angry  and  natural  impulses  ;  this, 
too,  when  most  of  the  talented  and  popular  leaders  were 

basis  for  emphatic  disparagement  and  contumely.  Even  Macken 
zie,  the  publisher  of  the  purloined  letters,  writing  his  pamphlet 
with  the  most  obvious  and  reckless  venom,  is  quoted  by  this 
learned  historian  as  respectable  authority.  Van  Buren  had 
refused  during  nearly  a  year  to  pardon  Mackenzie  from  prison 
for  his  unlawful  use  of  American  territory  to  prepare  armed 
raids  on  Canada.  Sir  Francis  B.  Head's  opinion  was  doubtless 
somewhat  colored  ;  but  he  was  not  entirely  without  justification 
in  applying  to  Mackenzie  the  words  :  "  He  lies  out  of  every  pore 
in  his  skin.  Whether  he  be  sleeping  or  waking,  on  foot  or  on 
horseback,  together  with  his  neighbors  or  writing  for  a  news 
paper,  a  multitudinous  swarm  of  lies,  visible,  palpable,  and  tan 
gible,  are  buzzing  and  settling  about  him  like  flies  around  a  horse 
in  August."  (Narrative  of  Sir  F.  B.  Head,  London,  1839.) 


280  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

promoting,  rather  than  reducing  or  diverting  the  heated 
folly  of  the  time. 

Van  Buren  quietly  began  by  saying  that  the  law 
required  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  deposit  public 
moneys  only  in  banks  that  paid  their  notes  in  specie.  All 
the  banks  had  stopped  such  payment.  It  was  obvious 
therefore  that  some  other  custody  of  public  moneys  must 
be  provided,  and  it  was  for  this  that  he  had  summoned 
Congress.  He  then  began  what  was  really  an  address  to 
the  people.  He  pointed  out  that  the  government  had  not 
caused,  and  that  it  could  not  cure,  the  profound  commer 
cial  distemper.  Antecedent  causes  had  been  stimulated 
by  the  enormous  inflations  of  bank  currency  and  other 
credits,  and  among  them  the  many  millions  of  foreign 
loans,  and  the  lavish  accommodations  extended  "  by  for 
eign  dealers  to  our  merchants."  Thence  had  come  the 
spirit  of  reckless  speculation,  and  from  that  a  foreign 
debt  of  more  than  thirty  millions ;  the  extension  to  trad 
ers  in  the  interior  of  credits  for  supplies  greatly  beyond 
the  wants  of  the  people  ;  the  investment  of  thirty-nine 
and  a  half  millions  in  unproductive  public  lands  ;  the 
creation  of  debts  to  an  almost  countless  amount  for  real 
estate  in  existing  or  anticipated  cities  and  villages ;  the 
expenditure  of  immense  sums  in  improvements  ruin 
ously  improvident ;  the  diversion  to  other  pursuits  of 
labor  that  should  have  gone  to  agriculture,  so  that  this 
first  of  agricultural  countries  had  imported  two  millions 
of  dollars  worth  of  grain  in  the  first  six  months  of 
1837  ;  and  the  rapid  growth  of  luxurious  habits  founded 
too  often  on  merely  fancied  wealth.  These  evils  had 
been  aggravated  by  the  great  loss  of  capital  in  the 
famous  fire  at  New  York  in  December,  1835,  a  loss 
whose  effects,  though  real,  were  not  at  once  apparent 


EXTRA   SESSION.  281 

because  of  the  shifting  and  postponement  of  the  burdens 
through  facilities  of  credit,  by  the  disturbance  which  the 
transfers  of  public  moneys  in  the  distribution  among 
the  states  caused,  and  by  necessities  of  foreign  creditors 
which  made  them  seek  to  withdraw  specie  from  the 
United  States.  He  pointed  out  the  unprecedented  ex 
pansion  of  credit  in  Great  Britain  at  the  same  time,  and, 
with  the  redundancy  of  paper  currency  1  there,  the  rise 
of  adventurous  and  unwholesome  speculation. 

To  the  demand  for  a  reestablishment  of  a  national 
bank,  he  replied  that  quite  the  contrary  must  be  done ; 
that  the  fiscal  concerns  of  the  government  must  be  sep 
arated  from  those  of  individuals  or  corporations  ;  that 
to  create  such  a  bank  would  be  to  disregard  the  popular 
will  twice  solemnly  and  unequivocally  expressed ;  that 
the  same  motives  would  operate  on  the  administrators 
of  a  national  as  on  those  of  state  banks  ;  that  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States  had  not  prevented  former  and 
similar  embarrassments,  and  that  the  Bank  of  England 
had  but  lately  failed  in  its  own  land  to  prevent  serious 
abuses  of  credit.  He  knew  indeed  of  loud  and  serious 
complaint  because  the  government  did  not  now  aid  com 
mercial  exchange.  But  this  was  no  part  of  its  duty. 
It  was  not  the  province  of  government  to  aid  individ 
uals  in  the  transfer  of  their  funds  otherwise  than 
through  the  facilities  of  the  post-office.  As  justly 
might  the  government  be  asked  to  transport  merchan 
dise.  These  were  operations  of  trade  to  be  conducted 
by  those  who  were  interested  in  them.  Throughout 
Europe  domestic  as  well  as  foreign  exchanges  were  car- 

1  The  reference  was  to  commercial  paper  and  not  to  Lank- 
notes.  But  both  had  been  active  characteristics  of  American 
speculation. 


282  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ried  on  by  private  houses,  and  often,  if  not  generally, 
without  the  assistance  of  banks.  Our  own  exchanges 
ought  to  be  carried  on  by  private  enterprise  and  compe 
tition,  without  legislative  assistance,  free  from  the  influ 
ence  of  political  agitation,  and  from  the  neglect,  par 
tiality,  injustice,  and  oppression  unavoidably  attending 
the  interference  of  government  with  the  proper  concerns 
of  individuals.  His  own  views,  Van  Buren  declared, 
were  unchanged.  Before  his  election  he  had  distinctly 
apprised  the  people  that  he  would  not  aid  in  the  re- 
establishment  of  a  national  bank.  His  conviction  had 
been  strengthened  that  such  a  bank  meant  a  concen 
trated  money  power  hostile  to  the  spirit  and  permanency 
of  our  republican  institutions. 

He  then  turned  to  those  state  banks  which  had  held 
government  deposits.  At  all  times  they  had  held  some 
of  the  federal  moneys,  and  since  1833  they  had  held  the 
whole.  Since  that  year  the  utmost  security  had  been 
required  from  them  for  such  moneys ;  but  when  lately 
called  upon  to  pay  the  surplus  to  the  states,  they  had, 
while  curtailing  their  discounts  and  increasing  the  gen 
eral  distress,  been  with  the  other  banks  fatally  involved 
in  the  revulsion.  Under  these  circumstances  it  was  a 
solemn  duty  to  inquire  whether  the  evils  inherent  in  any 
connection  between  the  government  and  banks  of  issue 
were  not  such  as  to  require  a  divorce.  Ought  the 
moneys  taken  from  the  people  for  public  uses  longer  to 
be  deposited  in  banks  and  thence  to  be  loaned  for  the 
profit  of  private  persons  ?  Ought  not  the  collection, 
safe-keeping,  transfer,  and  disbursement  of  public  moneys 
to  be  managed  by  public  officers  ?  The  public  revenues 
must  be  limited  to  public  expenses  so  that  there  should 
be  no  great  surplus.  The  care  of  the  moneys  inevitably 


INDEPENDENT  TREASURY.  283 

accumulated  from  time  to  time  would  involve  expense ; 
but  this  was  a  trifling  consideration  in  so  important  a 
matter.  Personally  it  would  be  agreeable  to  him  to  be 
free  from  concern  in  the  custody  and  disbursement  of 
the  public  revenue.  Not  indeed  that  he  would  shrink 
from  a  proper  official  responsibility,  but  because  he  firm 
ly  believed  the  capacity  of  the  Executive  for  usefulness 
was  in  no  degree  promoted  by  the  possession  of  patron 
age  not  actually  necessary.  But  he  was  clear  that  the 
connection  of  the  Executive  with  powerful  moneyed  in 
stitutions,  capable  of  ministering  to  the  interests  of  men 
in  points  where  they  were  most  accessible  to  corruption, 
was  more  liable  to  abuse  than  his  constitutional  agency 
in  the  appointment  and  control  of  the  few  public  officers 
required  by  the  proposed  plan. 

Thus  was  announced  the  independent  treasury  scheme, 
the  divorce  of  bank  and  state,  the  famous  achievement 
of  Van  Buren's  presidency.  He  argued  besides  elabo 
rately  in  favor  of  the  specie  circular.  An  individual 
could,  if  he  pleased,  accept  payment  in  a  paper  promise 
or  in  any  other  way  as  he  saw  fit.  But  a  public  servant 
should  in  exchange  for  public  domain  take  only  what 
was  universally  deemed  valuable.  He  ought  not  to  have 
a  discretion  to  measure  the  value  of  mere  promises. 
The  $9,367,200  in  the  treasury  for  deposit  with  the 
states  in  October,  or  rather  for  a  permanent  distribution 
to  them,  he  desired  to  retain  for  federal  necessities. 
This  would  doubtless  inconvenience  states  which  had  re 
lied  on  the  federal  donation ;  but  as  the  United  States 
needed  the  money  to  meet  its  own  obligations,  there  was 
neither  justice  nor  expediency  in  generously  giving  it 
away.  Van  Buren  here  left  the  defensive  with  a 
menace  to  the  banks  that  a  bankruptcy  law  for  corpo- 


28  J:  MARTIN  VAN  SUE  EN. 

rations  suspending  specie  payment  might  impose  a  salu 
tary  check  on  the  issues  of  paper  money. 

The  president  finally  spoke  in  words  which  seem 
golden  to  all  who  share  his  view  of  the  ends  of  govern 
ment.  "  Those  who  look  to  the  action  of  this  govern 
ment,"  he  said,  "  for  specific  aid  to  the  citizen  to  relieve 
embarrassments  arising  from  losses  by  revulsions  in  com 
merce  and  credit,  lose  sight  of  the  ends  for  which  it  was 
created,  and  the  powers  with  which  it  is  clothed.  It 
was  established  to  give  security  to  us  all,  in  our  lawful 
and  honorable  pursuits,  under  the  lasting  safeguard  of 
republican  institutions.  It  was  not  intended  to  confer 
special  favors  on  individuals,  or  on  any  classes  of  them ; 
to  create  systems  of  agriculture,  manufactures,  or  trade  ; 
or  to  engage  in  them,  either  separately  or  in  connec 
tion  with  individual  citizens  or  organizations.  .  .  .  All 
communities  are  apt  to  look  to  government  for  too 
much  .  .  .  We  are  prone  to  do  so  especially  at  periods 
of  sudden  embarrassment  and  distress.  .  .  .  The  less 
government  interferes  with  private  pursuits,  the  better 
for  the  general  prosperity.  It  is  not  its  legitimate  ob 
ject  to  make  men  rich,  or  to  repair  by  direct  grants  of 
money  or  legislation  in  favor  of  particular  pursuits,  losses 
not  incurred  in  the  public  service."  To  avoid  unneces 
sary  interference  with  such  pursuits  would  be  far  more 
beneficial  than  efforts  to  assist  limited  interests,  efforts 
eagerly,  but  perhaps  naturally,  sought  for  under  tempo 
rary  pressure.  Congress  and  himself,  Van  Buren  closed 
by  saying,  acted  for  a  people  to  whom  the  truth,  however 
unpromising,  could  always  be  spoken  with  safety,  and 
who,  in  the  phrase  of  which  he  was  fond,  were  sure 
never  to  desert  a  public  functionary  honestly  laboring 
for  the  public  good. 


INDEPENDENT  TREASURY.  285 

An  angry  and  almost  terrible  outburst  received  this 
plain,  honest,  and  wise  declaration  that  the  people  must 
repair  their  own  disasters  without  paternal  help  of  gov 
ernment  ;  and  that,  rather  than  to  promote  the  extension 
of  credit  with  public  moneys,  the  crisis  ought  to  afford 
means  of  departing  forever  from  that  policy.  Most 
of  the  able  men  who  to  this  generation  have  seemed 
the  larger  statesmen  of  the  day,  joined  with  passionate 
declamation  in  the  furious  gust  of  folly.  It  was  a  fa 
vorite  delusion  that  government  was  a  separate  entity 
which  could  help  the  people,  and  not  a  mere  agency, 
simply  using  wealth  and  power  which  the  people  must 
themselves  create.  Webster,  in  a  speech  at  Madison, 
Indiana,  on  June  1,  1837,  professed  his  conscientious 
convictions  that  all  the  disasters  had  proceeded  from 
"  the  measures  of  the  general  government  in  relation  to 
the  currency."  He  ridiculed  the  idea  that  the  people 
had  helped  cause  them.  The  people,  he  thought,  had 
no  lesson  to  learn.  "  Over- trading,  over-buying,  over 
selling,  over-speculation,  over-production,"  —  these,  he 
said,  were  terms  he  "  could  not  very  well  understand." 
In  his  speech  of  December,  1836,  on  the  specie  circular, 
he  had  given  a  leonine  laugh  at  the  idea  of  there  being 
inflation.  If  he  were  asked,  he  said,  what  kept  up  the 
value  of  money  "  in  this  vast  and  sudden  expansion  and 
increase  of  it,"  he  should  answer  that  it  was  kept  up 
"  by  an  equally  vast  and  sudden  increase  in  the  property 
of  the  country."  That  this  amazing  utterance  upon  the 
dynamics  of  national  economy  might  be  clear,  he  added 
that  the  vast  and  sudden  increase  was  "  in  the  value  of 
that  property  intrinsic  as  well  as  marketable."  No 
speculator  of  the  day  said  a  more  foolish  thing  than 
did  this  towering  statesman.  There  were,  he  admitted, 


286  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

"  other  minor  causes,"  but  they  were  "  not  worth  enu 
merating."  "  The  great  and  immediate  origin  of  the 
evil "  was  "  disturbances  in  the  exchange  .  .  .  caused 
by  the  agency  of  the  government  itself."  At  the  extra 
session  Webster  described  the  shock  caused  him  by  the 
president's  "  disregard  for  the  public  distress,"  by  his 
"  exclusive  concern  for  the  interest  of  government  and 
revenue,  by  his  refusal  to  prescribe  for  the  sickness  and 
disease  of  society,"  by  the  separation  he  would  draw 
"  between  the  interests  of  the  government  and  the  inter 
ests  of  the  people."  For  his  part  he  would  be  warm 
and  generous  in  his  statesmanship.  He  resisted  the  bill 
to  suspend  the  "  deposit "  with  the  states  ;  he  would  in 
the  coming  October  pay  out  the  last  installment,  stricken 
though  the  treasury  was.  He  would  again  sweeten  the 
popular  palate  with  government  manna,  bitter  as  it  had 
proved  itself  to  the  belly.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  gov 
ernment,  he  said,  to  aid  in  exchanges  by  establishing  a 
paper  currency;  he  and  those  with  him  preferred  the 
long-tried,  well-approved  practice  of  the  government  to 
letting  Benton,  as  he  said,  "  embrace  us  in  his  gold  and 
silver  arms  and  hug  us  to  his  hard  money  breast."  As 
if  this  were  not  a  time  for  soberness  over  its  shameful 
abuses,  credit,  and  the  banks  and  bank-notes  which  aided 
it  were  almost  apotheosized.  At  St.  Louis  in  the  sum 
mer,  Webster,  in  a  speech  which  he  did  not  include  in 
his  collected  works,  said  that  help  must  come  "  from  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  from  thence  alone ;" 
adding,  "  Upon  this  I  risk  my  political  reputation,  my 
honor,  my  all.  .  .  .  He  who  expects  to  live  to  see  all 
these  twenty-six  states  resuming  specie  payments  in  regu 
lar  succession  once  more,  may  expect  to  see  the  restora 
tion  of  the  Jews.  Never !  He  will  die  without  the 
sight." 


INDEPENDENT  TREASURY.  287 

John  Quincy  Adams  had  told  his  friends  at  home  that 
the  distribution  of  the  public  moneys  among  the  state 
banks  was  the  most  pernicious  cause  of  the  disaster, 
although,  differing  from  Webster,  he  admitted  that  "the 
abuse  of  credit,  especially  by  the  agency  of  banks,"  and 
the  unrestrained  pursuit  of  individual  wealth,  were  the 
proximate  causes  of  the  disaster,  for  history  had  testi 
fied 

' '  Peace  to  corrupt,  no  less  than  war  to  waste. ' ' 

He  would  punish  suspension  of  specie  payments  by  a 
bank  with  a  forfeiture  of  its  charter  and  the  imprison 
ment  of  its  president  and  officers.  A  national  bank,  he 
said,  was  "  the  only  practicable  expedient  for  restoring 
and  maintaining  specie  payments."  In  the  extra  ses 
sion  he  showed  that  the  deposit  banks  of  the  South 
already  held  more  money  of  the  government  than  their 
states  would  receive,  if  the  last  installment  of  distribu 
tion  should  be  paid,  while  the  northern  banks  held  far 
less  of  that  money  than  the  northern  states  were  to 
receive.  He  denounced  as  a  southern  measure  the  prop 
osition  to  postpone  this  piece  of  recklessness.  Should 
the  northern  states  hail  with  shouts  of  Hosanna  "  this 
evanescence  of  their  funds  from  their  treasuries,"  or  be 
"  humbugged  out  of  their  vested  rights  by  a  howl  of 
frenzy  against  Nicholas  Biddle,"  or  be  mystified  out  of 
their  money  and  out  of  their  senses  by  a  Hark  follow  ! 
against  all  banks,  or  by  a  summons  to  Doctors'  Com 
mons  for  a  divorce  of  bank  and  state  ? 

That  skillful  political  weathercock,  Caleb  Gushing, 
told  his  constituents  at  Lowell  that  private  banking  was 
the  "  shinplaster  system  ;  "  and  asked  whether  we  wished 
to  have  men  who,  like  the  Rothschilds,  make  "  peace  or 
war  as  they  choose,  and  wield  at  will  the  destiny  of 


288  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

empires."  The  plan  of  the  administration  was  like  that 
of  "  a  cowardly  master  of  a  sinking  ship,  to  take  posses 
sion  of  the  long  boat  and  provisions,  cut  off,  and  leave 
the  ship's  company  and  passengers  to  their  fate."  To 
the  plausible  cry  of  separating  bank  and  state  he  would 
answer,  "  Why  not  separate  court  and  state  ...  or 
law  and  state  ...  or  custom-house  and  state."  It 
was  "  the  new  nostrum  of  political  quackery."  Clay 
delivered  a  famous  speech  in  the  senate  on  September 
25,  1837.  He  was  appalled  at  the  heartlessness  of  the 
administration.  "  The  people,  the  states,  and  their 
banks,"  he  said  in  the  favorite  cant  of  the  time,  "  are 
left  to  shift  for  themselves,"  as  if  that  were  not  the  very 
thing  for  them  to  do.  We  were  all,  he  said,  —  "  peo 
ple,  states,  Union,  banks,  ...  all  entitled  to  the  pro 
tecting  care  of  a  parental  government."  He  cried  out 
against  "  a  selfish  solicitude  for  the  government  itself, 
but  a  cold  and  heartless  insensibility  to  the  sufferings  of 
a  bleeding  people."  The  substitution  of  an  exclusive 
metallic  currency  was  "  forbidden  by  the  principles  of 
eternal  justice."  For  his  part  he  saw  no  adequate 
remedy  which  did  "  not  comprehend  a  national  bank 
as  an  essential  part  of  it."  In  banking  corporations, 
indeed,  "  the  interests  of  the  rich  and  poor  are  happily 
blended  ;  "  nor  should  we  encourage  here  private  bank 
ers,  Hopes  and  Barings  and  Rothschilds  and  Hotin- 
guers,  "  whose  vast  overgrown  capitals,  possessed  by 
the  rich  exclusively  of  the  poor,  control  the  destiny  of 
nations." 

The  bill  for  the  independent  treasury  was  firmly 
pressed  by  the  administration.  It  did  not  deceive  the 
people  with  any  pretense  that  banks  and  paper  money 
would  stand  in  lieu  of  industry,  economy,  and  good 


EXTRA  SESSION.  289 

sense.  The  summer  elections,  then  far  more  numerous 
than  now,  had,  as  Clay  warningly  pointed  out,  gone 
heavily  against  Van  Buren.  The  bill  passed  the  senate, 
26  to  20.  In  the  house  it  was  defeated.  Upon  the 
election  of  speaker,  the  administration  candidate,  James 
K.  Polk,  had  had  116  votes  to  103  for  John  Bell.  But 
this  very  moderate  majority  was  insecure.  A  break  in 
the  administration  ranks  was  promptly  shown  by  the 
defeat,  for  printers  to  the  house,  of  Francis  P.  Blair 
and  his  partner,  who  in  their  paper,  the  "  Washington 
Globe,"  had  firmly  supported  the  hard  money  and  anti- 
bank  policy.  They  received  only  107  votes,  about  fifteen 
Democrats  uniting  with  the  Whigs  to  defeat  them. 
Van  Buren  was  unable  to  educate  all  his  party  to  his 
own  firm,  clear-sighted  views.  There  was  formed  a 
small  party  of  "conservatives,"  Democrats  who  took 
what  seemed,  and  what  for  the  time  was,  the  popular 
course.  The  independent  treasury  bill  was  defeated  in 
the  house  by  120  to  106. 

Van  Buren's  proposal  was  carried,  however,  to  post 
pone  the  "  deposite,"  as  it  was  called,  the  gift  as  it  was, 
of  the  fourth  installment  of  the  surplus.  On  October  1, 
Webster  and  Clay  led  the  seventeen  senators  who 
insisted  upon  the  folly  of  the  national  treasury  in  its 
destitution  playing  the  magnificent  donor,  and  further 
debauching  the  states  with  streams  of  pretended  wealth. 
Twenty-eight  senators  voted  for  the  bill;  and  in  the 
house  it  was  carried  by  118  to  105,  John  Quincy  Adams 
heading  the  negative  vote. 

The  administration  further  proposed  the  issue  of 
$10,000,000  in  treasury  notes.  It  was  a  measure  strictly 
of  temporary  relief.  Gold  and  silver  had  disappeared  ; 
bank-notes  were  discredited.  The  government,  whose 


290  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

gold  and  silver  the  banks  would  not  pay  out,  was  dis 
abled  from  meeting  its  current  obligations ;  and  the 
treasury  notes  were  proposed  to  meet  the  necessity. 
They  were  not  to  be  legal  tender,  but  interest-bearing 
obligations  in  denominations  not  less  than  $50,  to  be 
merely  receivable  for  all  public  dues,  and  thus  to  gain  a 
credit  which  would  secure  their  circulation.  This  nat 
ural  and  moderate  measure  was  assailed  by  those  who 
were  lauding  a  paper  currency  to  the  skies.  The  radi 
cal  difference  was  ignored  between  a  general  currency 
of  small  as  well  as  large  bills,  without  intrinsic  value, 
adopted  for  all  time,  and  a  limited  and  perfectly  secure 
government  loan,  to  be  freely  taken  or  rejected  by  the 
people,  in  bills  of  large  amounts,  to  meet  a  serious  but 
brief  embarrassment.  "  Who  expected,"  said  Webster 
in  the  senate,  "  that  in  the  fifth  year  of  the  experiment 
for  reforming  the  currency,  and  bringing  it  to  an  abso 
lute  gold  and  silver  circulation,  the  treasury  department 
would  be  found  recommending  to  us  a  regular  emission 
of  paper  money?"  He  voted,  however,  for  the  bill, 
the  only  negative  votes  in  the  senate  being  given  by 
Clay  and  four  others.  In  the  house  it  was  carried  by 
127  to  98. 

Such  was  the  substantial  work  of  the  extra  session. 
Its  circumstances  and  debates  were  a  fount  of  experi 
ence  and  wisdom,  to  which  thirty  and  forty  years  later 
may  not  improbably  be  ascribed  the  hard-money  leaven 
which  prevented  the  great  disaster  of  further  paper 
inflation,  and  brought  the  country  to  a  currency  which, 
if  not  the  best,  is  a  currency  of  coin  and  of  redeemable 
paper,  whose  value,  apart  from  the  legal-tender  notes 
left  us  by  the  war  and  the  decision  of  the  supreme  court, 
depends  upon  the  best  of  securities,  coin  or  government 


EXTRA  SESSION.  291 

bonds,  deposited  in  the  treasury,  and  a  currency  whose 
amount  may  therefore  safely  be  left  to  the  natural 
operations  of  trade. 

Clay's  appeal  for  a  great  banking  institution,  which 
should  accomplish  by  magic  the  results  of  popular  labor 
and  saving,  was  met  by  a  vote  of  the  house,  123  to  91, 
that  it  was  inexpedient  to  charter  a  national  bank,  many 
voting  against  a  bank  who  had  already  voted  against  an 
independent  treasury.  The  senate  also  resolved  against 
a  national  bank  by  31  to  14,  six  senators  who  had  voted 
against  an  independent  treasury  voting  also  against  a 
bank.  The  temporary  expedient  adopted  by  the  treas 
ury  on  the  suspension  of  the  banks  was  therefore  con 
tinued,  and  public  moneys  were  kept  in  the  hands  of 
public  officers. 

Calhoun  now  rejoined  the  Democratic  party.  It  was 
only  the  year  before  he  had  denounced  it  as  "  a  powerful 
faction  held  together  by  the  hopes  of  public  plunder  ;  " 
and  early  in  this  very  year  he  had  referred  to  the  re 
moval  of  the  deposits  as  an  act  fit  for  "  the  days  of 
Pompey  or  Caesar,"  and  had  declared  that  even  a  Ro 
man  senate  would  not  have  passed  the  expunging  resolu 
tion  "  until  the  times  of  Caligula  and  Nero."  But  Van 
Buren,  Calhoun  now  said,  had  been  driven  to  his  posi 
tion  ;  nor  would  he  leave  the  position  for  that  reason. 
He  referred  to  the  strict  construction  of  the  powers  of 
the  government  involved  in  the  divorce  of  bank  and 
state.  There  was  no  suggestion  that  Van  Buren  had 
become  a  convert  to  nullification.  But  Calhoun  could 
with  consistency  support  Van  Buren.  The  independent 
treasury  scheme  was  plainly  far  different  from  the  re 
moval  of  the  deposits  from  one  great  bank  to  many  les 
ser  ones.  The  reasons  for  political  exasperation  had 


292  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

besides  disappeared.  Van  Buren  was  chief  among  the 
beati  possidentes,  and  could  not  for  years  be  disturbed. 
His  tact  and  skill  left  open  no  personal  feud ;  he  had 
not  yet  conferred  the  title  of  Caesar  ;  no  successor  to 
himself  was  yet  named  by  any  clear  designation.  Cal- 
houn  joined  Silas  Wright  and  the  other  administration 
senators  ;  but  he  still  maintained  a  grim  and  indepen 
dent  front. 

The  extra  session  ended  on  October  16.  Besides 
the  issuance  of  $10,000,000  in  treasury  notes  and  the 
postponement  of  the  distribution  among  the  states,  the 
only  measure  adopted  for  relief  was  a  law  permitting 
indulgence  of  payment  to  importers  upon  custom-house 
bonds.  As  those  payments  were  to  be  made  in  specie, 
and  as  specie  had  left  circulation,  it  was  proper  that  the 
United  States  as  a  creditor  should  exhibit  the  same  leni 
ency  which  was  wise  and  necessary  on  the  part  of  other 
creditors. 

Commercial  distress  had  now  materially  abated,  al 
though  many  of  its  wounds  were  still  deep  and  unhealed. 
Before  the  regular  session  began  in  December,  substantial 
progress  was  made  towards  specie  payments.  The  price 
of  gold  in  New  York  which  had  ruled  at  a  premium 
of  eight  and  seven  eighths  per  cent.,  had  fallen  to  five. 
On  October  20  the  banks  of  New  York,  after  waiting 
until  Congress  rose,  to  meet  the  wishes  of  the  United 
States  Bank  and  its  associates  in  Philadelphia,  now  in 
vited  representatives  from  all  the  banks  to  meet  in  New 
York  on  November  27  to  prepare  for  specie  payment. 
At  this  meeting  the  New  York  banks  proposed  resump 
tion  on  March  1,  1838,  but  they  were  defeated  ;  and  a 
resolution  to  resume  on  July  1  was  defeated  by  the 
votes  of  Pennsylvania  and  all  the  New  England  states 


LOCO-FOCOS.  293 

except  Maine  (which  was  divided),  together  with  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland,  South  Carolina,  and  In 
diana.  Virginia,  Ohio,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  Ken 
tucky,  and  the  District  of  Columbia,  with  New  York, 
made  the  minority.  An  adjournment  was  taken  to  the 
second  Wednesday  in  April,  the  banks  being  urged 
meanwhile  to  prepare  for  specie  payments. 

The  fall  as  well  as  the  summer  elections  had  been 
most  disastrous  for  the  Democrats.  New  York,  which 
the  year  before  had  given  Van  Buren  nearly  30,000 
plurality,  was  now  overwhelmingly  Whig.  The  Van 
Buren  party  began  to  be  called  the  Loco-focos,  in  deri 
sion  of  the  fancied  extravagance  of  their  financial  doc 
trines.  The  Loco-foco  or  Equal  Rights  party  proper 
was  originally  a  division  of  the  Democrats,  strongly  anti- 
monopolist  in  their  opinions,  and  especially  hostile  to 
banks,  —  not  only  government  banks  but  all  banks,  — 
which  enjoyed  the  privileges  then  long  conferred  by 
special  and  exclusive  charters.  In  the  fall  of  1835  some 
of  the  Democratic  candidates  in  New  York  were  espe 
cially  obnoxious  to  the  anti-monopolists  of  the  party. 
When  the  meeting  to  regularly  confirm  the  nominations 
made  in  committee  was  called  at  Tammany  Hall,  the 
anti-monopolist  Democrats  sought  to  capture  the  meet 
ing  by  a  rush  up  the  main  stairs.  The  regulars,  how 
ever,  showed  themselves  worthy  of  their  regularity  by 
reaching  the  room  up  the  back  stairs.  In  a  general 
scrimmage  the  gas  was  put  out.  The  anti-monopolists, 
perhaps  used  to  the  devices  to  prevent  meetings  which 
might  be  hostile,  were  ready  with  candles  and  loco-foco 
matches.  The  hall  was  quickly  illuminated  ;  and  the  anti- 
monopolists  claimed  that  they  had  defeated  the  nomina 
tions.  The  regulars  were  successful,  however,  at  the  elec- 


294  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

tion ;  and  they  and  the  Whigs  dubbed  the  anti-monopo 
lists  the  Loco-foco  men.  The  latter  in  1836  organized 
the  Equal  Rights  party,  and  declared  it  an  imperative 
duty  of  the  people  "  to  recur  to  first  principles."  Their 
"  declaration  of  rights  "  might  well  a  few  years  later 
have  been  drawn  by  a  student  of  Spencer's  "  Social  Stat 
ics."  The  law,  they  said,  ought  to  do  no  more  than 
restrain  each  man  from  committing  aggressions  on  the 
equal  rights  of  other  men  ;  they  declared  u  unqualified 
hostility  to  bank-notes  and  paper  money  as  a  circulat 
ing  medium,"  and  to  all  special  grants  by  the  legisla 
ture.  A  great  cry  was  raised  against  them  as  danger 
ous  and  incendiary  fanatics.  The  Democratic  press, 
except  the  "  Evening  Post,"  edited  by  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  turned  violently  upon  the  seceders.  There  was 
the  same  horror  of  them  as  the  English  at  almost  the 
very  time  had  of  the  Chartists,  and  which  in  our  time 
is  roused  by  the  political  movements  of  Henry  George. 
But  with  time  and  familiarity  Chartism  and  Loco-foco- 
ism  alike  lost  their  horrid  aspect.  Several  of  the  cardi 
nal  propositions  of  the  former  have  been  adopted  in 
acts  of  Parliament  without  a  shudder.  To  the  animosity 
of  the  Loco-focos  against  special  legislation  and  special 
privileges  Americans  probably  owe  to-day  some  part  of 
the  beneficent  movement  in  many  of  the  states  for  con 
stitutional  requirements  that  legislatures  shall  act  by 
general  laws. 

The  Equal  Rights  party,  though  casting  but  a  few 
votes,  managed  to  give  the  city  of  New  York  to  the 
Whigs,  a  result  which  convinced  the  Democrats  that, 
dangerous  as  they  were,  they  were  less  dangerous  within 
than  without  the  party.  The  hatred  which  Van  Buren 
after  his  message  of  September,  1837,  received  from 


INDEPENDENT  TREASURY.  295 

the  banks  commended  him  to  the  Loco-focos  ;  and  in 
October,  1837,  Tammany  Hall  witnessed  their  recon 
ciliation  with  the  regular  Democrats  upon  a  moderate 
declaration  for  equal  rights.  The  Whigs  had,  indeed, 
been  glad  enough  to  have  Loco-foco  aid  and  even  open 
alliance  at  the  polls.  But  none  the  Jess  they  thought  the 
Democratic  welcome  back  of  the  seceders  an  enormity. 
From  this  time  the  Democrats  were,  it  was  clear,  no 
better  than  Loco-focos,  and  ought  to  bear  the  name  of 
those  dangerous  iconoclasts. 

Van  Buren  met  Congress  in  December,  1837,  with 
still  undaunted  front.  His  first  general  review  of  the 
operations  of  the  government  was  but  little  longer  than 
his  message  to  the  extra  session  on  the  single  topic  of 
finance.  He  refused  to  consider  the  result  of  the  elec 
tions  as  a  popular  disapproval  of  the  divorce  of  bank 
and  state.  In  only  one  state,  he  pointed  out,  had  a 
federal  election  been  held  ;  and  in  the  other  elections, 
which  had  been  local,  he  intimated  that  the  fear  of  a 
forfeiture  of  the  state-bank  charters  for  their  suspension 
of  specie  payments  had  determined  the  result.  He  still 
emphatically  opposed  the  connection  between  the  govern 
ment  and  the  banks  which  could  offer  such  strong  in 
ducements  for  political  agitation.  He  blew  another  blast 
against  the  United  States  Bank,  now  a  Pennsylvania 
corporation,  for  continuing  to  reissue  its  notes  originally 
made  before  its  federal  charter  had  expired  and  since 
returned.  He  recommended  a  preemption  law  for  the 
benefit  of  actual  settlers  on  public  lands,  and  a  classifi 
cation  of  lands  under  different  rates,  to  encourage  the 
settlement  of  the  poorer  lands  near  the  older  settle 
ments.  There  was  a  conciliatory  but  firm  reference 
to  the  dispute  with  England  over  the  northeastern 


296  MARTIN   VAN  BUR/.N. 

boundary.  He  announced  his  failure  to  adjust  the 
dispute  with  Mexico  over  the  claims  which  had  been 
pressed  by  Jackson.  The  Texan  cloud  which  six  years 
later  brought  Van  Buren's  defeat  was  already  threaten 
ing. 

At  this  session  the  independent  or  sub-treasury  bill 
was  again  introduced,  and  again  a  titanic  battle  was 
waged  in  the  senate.  In  this  encounter  Clay  taunted 
Calhoun  for  going  over  to  the  enemy  ;  and  Calhoun,  re 
ferring  to  the  Adams-Clay  coalition,  retorted  that  Clay 
had  on  a  memorable  occasion  gone  over,  and  had  not 
left  it  to  time  to  disclose  his  motives.  Here  it  was  that, 
in  the  decorous  fury  of  the  times,  both  senators  stamped 
accusations  with  scorn  in  the  dust,  and  hurled  back  darts 
fallen  harmless  at  their  feet.  The  bill  passed  the  senate 
by  27  to  25  ;  but  Calhoun  finally  voted  against  it  be 
cause  there  had  been  stricken  out  the  provision  that 
government  dues  should  be  paid  in  specie.  The  bill 
was  again  defeated  in  the  house  by  125  to  111.  The 
latter  vote  was  late  in  June,  1838.  But  while  Con 
gress  refused  a  law  for  it,  the  independent  treasury  in 
fact  existed.  Under  the  circular  issued  upon  the  bank 
suspension,  the  collection,  keeping,  and  payment  of 
federal  moneys  continued  to  be  done  by  federal  offi 
cers.  The  absurdity  of  the  declamation  about  one's 
blood  curdling  at  Van  Buren's  recommendations,  about 
this  being  the  system  in  vogue  where  people  were  ground 
"  to  the  very  dust  by  the  awful  despotism  of  their 
rulers,"  was  becoming  apparent  in  the  easy,  natural 
operation  of  the  system,  dictated  though  it  was  by  neces 
sity  rather  than  law.  The  Whigs,  in  the  sounding 
jeremiades  of  Webster  and  the  perfervid  eloquence  of 
Clay,  were  joined  by  the  Conservatives,  former  Demo- 


ABATEMENT  OF  THE  CRISIS.  297 

crats,  with  Tallin adge  of  New  York  and  Rives  of  Vir 
ginia  at  their  head.  They  had  retired  into  the  cave  of 
superior  wisdom,  of  which  many  men  are  fond  when  a 
popular  storm  seems  rising  against  their  party ;  they 
affected  oppressive  grief  at  Van  Buren's  reckless  hatred 
of  the  popular  welfare,  and  accused  him  of  designing 
entire  destruction  of  credit  in  the  ordinary  transactions 
of  business.  This  silly  charge  was  continually  made, 
and  gained  color  from  the  extreme  doctrines  of  the 
Equal  Rights  movement  and  the  fixing  of  the  Loco-foco 
name  upon  the  Democratic  party. 

The  sub-treasury  bill  was  again  taken  up  at  the  long 
session  of  1839-40  by  the  Congress  elected  in  1838. 
Again  the  wisdom  of  separating  bank  and  state,  again 
the  wrong  of  using  public  moneys  to  aid  private  business 
and  speculation,  were  stated  with  perfectly  clear  but  un 
inspiring  logic.  Again  came  the  antiphonal  cry,  warm 
and  positive,  against  the  cruelty  of  withdrawing  the  gov 
ernment  from  an  affectionate  care  for  the  people,  and 
from  its  duty  generously  to  help  every  one  to  earn  his 
living.  In  and  out  of  Congress  it  was  the  debate  of  the 
time,  and  rightly  ;  for  it  involved  a  profound  and  criti 
cal  issue,  which  since  the  foundation  of  the  government 
has  been  second  in  importance  only  to  the  questions  of 
slavery  and  national  existence  and  reconstruction.  In 
1840  the  bill  passed  the  senate  by  24  to  18  and  the  house 
by  124  to  107.  This  chief  monument  of  Van  Buren's 
administration  seemed  quickly  demolished  by  the  tri 
umphant  Whigs  in  1841,  but  was  finally  set  up  again 
in  1846  without  the  aid  of  its  architect.  From  that 
time  to  our  own,  in  war  and  in  peace,  the  independence 
of  the  federal  treasury  has  been  a  cardinal  feature  of 
American  finance.  Nor  was  its  theory  lost  even  in  the 


298  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

system  of  national  banks  and  public  depositories  created 
for  the  tremendous  necessities  of  the  civil  war.1 

By  the  spring  of  1838  business  had  revived  during 
the  year  of  enforced  industry  and  economy  among  the 
people.  In  January,  1838,  the  premium  on  gold  at  New 
York  sank  to  3  per  cent. ;  and  when  the  bank  conven 
tion  met  on  the  adjourned  day  in  April,  the  premium 
was  less  than  1  per  cent.  The  United  States  Bank  re 
sisted  resumption  with  great  affectation  of  public  spirit, 
but  for  selfish  reasons  soon  to  be  disclosed.  The  New 
York  banks,  with  an  apology  to  their  associates,  resolved 
to  resume  by  May  10,  five  days  before  the  date  to 
which  the  state  had  legalized  the  suspension.  The  con 
vention  adopted  a  resolution  for  general  resumption  on 
January  1,  1839,  without  precluding  earlier  resumption 
by  any  banks  which  deemed  it  proper.  In  April  it  was 
learned  that  the  Bank  of  England  was  shipping  a  million 
sterling  to  aid  resumption  by  the  banks.  On  July  10, 
Governor  Ritner  of  Pennsylvania  by  proclamation  re 
quired  the  banks  of  his  state  to  resume  by  August  1. 
On  the  13th  of  that  month  the  banks  of  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  Delaware,  Maryland,  Vir 
ginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois 
yielded  to  the  moral  coercion  of  the  New  York  banks, 
and  to  the  resumption  now  enforced  on  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States.  By  the  fall  of  1838  resumption  was 
general  although  the  banks  at  the  Southwest  did  not  fol 
low  until  midwinter.  Confidence  was  so  much  restored 
that  "  runs  "  on  the  banks  did  not  occur.  The  crisis 

1  The  depositories  now  authorized  for  the  proceeds  of  the  in 
ternal  revenue  secure  the  government  by  a  deposit  of  the  bonds 
of  the  latter,  which  the  depositories  must  of  course  purchase  and 
own  (U.  S.  Rev.  Stats.  §  5153.) 


ABATEMENT  OF   THE    CRISIS.  299 

seemed  at  an  end  ;  and  Van  Buren  not  unreasonably 
fancied  that  lie  saw  before  the  country  two  years  of 
steady  and  sound  return  to  prosperity.  Two  such  years 
would,  in  November,  1840,  bring  the  reward  of  his  sa 
gacity  and  endurance.  But  a  far  deeper  draft  upon  the 
vitality  of  the  patient  had  been  made  than  was  supposed  ; 
and  in  its  last  agony,  eighteen  months  later,  Biddles's 
bank  was  able  to  help  to  blast  Van  Buren's  political  am 
bition. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PRESIDENT.  CANADIAN     INSURRECTION.  —  TEXAS.  

SEMINOLE    WAR. DEFEAT    FOR    RE  ELECTION. 

ANOTHER  unpopular  duty  fell  to  Van  Buren  during 
his  presidency,  a  duty  but  for  which  New  York  might 
have  been  saved  to  him  in  1840.  In  the  Lower  and 
Upper  Canadas  popular  discontent  and  political  tumult 
resulted  late  in  1837  in  violence,  so  often  the  only  means 
by  which  English  dependencies  have  brought  their  im 
perial  mistress  to  a  respect  for  their  complaints.  The 
liberality  of  the  Whigs,  then  lately  triumphant  in  Eng 
land,  was  not  broad  enough  to  include  these  distant 
colonists.  The  provincial  legislature .  in  each  of  the 
Canadas  consisted  of  a  lower  house  or  assembly  chosen 
by  popular  vote,  and  an  upper  house  or  council  appointed 
by  the  governor,  who  himself  was  appointed  by  and  rep 
resented  the  crown.  Reforms  after  reforms,  proposed 
by  the  popular  houses,  were  rejected  by  the  council.  In 
Lower  Canada  the  popular  opposition  was  among  the 
French,  who  had  never  been  embittered  towards  the 
United  States.  In  Upper  Canada  its  strength  was 
among  settlers  who  had  come  since  the  war  closed  in 
1815.  Lower  Canada  demanded  in  vain  that  the  council 
be  made  elective.  Its  assembly,  weary  of  the  effectual 
opposition  of  the  council  to  popular  measures,  began  in 
1832  to  refuse  votes  of  supplies  unless  their  grievances 
were  redressed  ;  and  by  1837  government  charges  had 


CANADIAN  INSURRECTION.  301 

accrued  to  the  amount  of  £142,100.  On  April  14, 
1837,  Lord  John  Russell,  still  wearing  the  laurel  of  a 
victor  for  popular  rights,  procured  from  the  imperial 
parliament  permission,  without  the  assent  of  the  colonial 
parliament,  to  apply  to  these  charges  the  money  in  the 
hands  of  the  receiver-general  of  Lower  Canada.  This 
extraordinary  grant  passed  the  House  of  Commons  by 
269  to  46.  A  far  less  flagitious  case  of  taxation  with 
out  representation  had  begun  the  American  Revolution. 
The  money  had  been  raised  under  laws  which  provided 
for  its  expenditure  by  vote  of  a  local  representative 
body.  It  was  expended  by  the  vote  of  a  body  at  West 
minster,  three  thousand  miles  away,  but  few  of  whose 
members  knew  or  cared  anything  for  the  bleak  piece  of 
seventeenth-century  France  on  the  lower  St.  Lawrence, 
and  none  of  whom  had  contributed  a  penny  of  it.  To 
even  Gladstone,  lately  the  under-secretary  for  the  colonies 
and  then  a  rising  hope  of  unbending  Tories,  there  seemed 
nothing  involved  but  the  embarrassment  of  faithful  ser 
vants  of  the  crown.  This  thoroughly  British  disregard 
of  sentiment  among  other  people  roused  a  deep  opposi 
tion  which  was  headed  by  Papineau,  a  hero  of  eloquence 
among  the  French.  An  insurrection  broke  out  in  No 
vember,  1837,  and  blood  was  shed  in  engagements  at  St. 
Denis  and  St.  Charles,  not  far  from  Montreal.  But  the 
insurgents  were  quickly  defeated,  and  within  three  weeks 
the  insurrection  in  Lower  Canada  was  ended. 

In  Upper  Canada  there  was  considerable  republican 
sentiment,  and  the  party  of  popular  rights  had  among 
its  leaders  men  of  a  high  order  of  ability.  One  of 
them,  Marshall  S.  Bidwell,  through  the  magnanimity  or 
procurement  of  the  governor,  escaped  from  Canada  to 
become  one  of  the  most  honored  and  stately  figures  at 


302  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  bar  of  New  York.  Early  in  1836  Sir  Francis  B. 
Head,  a  clever  and  not  ill-natured  man,  arrived  as  gov 
ernor.  He  himself  wrote  the  unconscious  Anglicism 
that  "  the  great  danger "  he  "  had  to  avoid  was  the 
slightest  attempt  to  conciliate  any  party."  It  was  as 
sumed  with  the  usual  insufferable  affectation  of  omni 
science  that  these  hardy  western  settlers  were  merely 
children  who  did  not  know  what  was  best  for  them. 
Even  the  suggestions  of  concession  sent  him  from  Eng 
land  were  not  respected.  In  an  election  for  the  assem 
bly  he  had  the  issue  announced  as  one  of  separation 
from  England  ;  and  by  the  use,  it  was  said,  of  his  power 
and  patronage,  the  colonial  Tories  carried  a  majority  of 
the  house.  Hopeless  of  any  redress,  and  fired  by  the 
rumors  of  the  revolt  in  Lower  Canada,  an  insurrection 
took  place  early  in  December  near  Toronto.  It  was 
speedily  suppressed.  One  of  the  leaders,  Mackenzie, 
escaped  to  Buffalo.  Others  were  captured  and  pun 
ished,  some  of  them  capitally. 

The  mass  of  the  Canadians  were  doubtless  opposed 
to  the  insurrection.  But  there  was  among  them  a  wide 
spread  and  reasonable  discontent,  with  which  the  Amer 
icans,  and  especially  the  people  of  northern  and  western 
New  York,  warmly  sympathized.  It  was  natural  and 
traditional  to  believe  England  an  oppressor  ;  and  there 
was  every  reason  in  this  case  to  believe  the  Canadians 
right  in  their  ill-feeling.  The  refugees  who  had  fled  to 
New  York  met  with  an  enthusiastic  reception,  and,  in 
the  security  of  a  foreign  land,  prepared  to  advance 
their  rebellion.  On  the  long  frontier  of  river,  lake,  and 
wilderness  it  was  difficult,  with  the  meagre  force  regu 
larly  at  the  disposal  of  the  United  States,  to  prevent 
depredations.  This  difficulty  became  enhanced  by  a 


CANADIAN  INSURRECTION.  303 

culpable  though  not  unnatural  invasion  of  American  ter 
ritory  by  British  troops.  On  December  12,  1837, 
Mackenzie,  who  had  the  day  before  arrived  with  a  price 
of  $4,000  set  upon  his  head,  addressed  a  large  audience 
at  Buffalo.  Volunteers  were  called  for ;  and  the  next 
day,  with  twenty-five  men,  commanded  by  Van  Rensse- 
laer,  an  American,  he  seized  Navy  Island  in  the  Niag 
ara  River,  but  a  short  distance  above  the  cataract,  and 
belonging  to  Canada.  He  there  established  a  provi 
sional  government,  with  a  flag  and  a  great  seal ;  and 
that  the  new  state  might  be  complete,  paper  money  was 
issued.  By  January,  1838,  there  were  several  hundred 
men  on  the  island,  largely  Americans,  with  arms  and 
provisions  chiefly  obtained  from  the  American  side. 

On  the  night  of  December  29,  1837,  a  party  of  Cana 
dian  militia  crossed  the  Niagara  to  seize  the  Caroline,  a 
steamer  in  the  service  of  the  rebels.  It  happened,  how 
ever,  that  the  steamer,  instead  of  being  at  Navy  Island, 
was  at  Schlosser,  on  the  American  shore.  The  Cana 
dians  seized  the  vessel,  killing  several  men  in  the  affray, 
and  after  setting  her  on  fire,  loosened  her  from  the 
shore,  to  go  blazing  down  the  river  and  over  the  falls. 
This  invasion  of  American  territory  caused  indignant 
excitement  through  the  United  States.  Van  Buren 
had  promptly  sought  to  prevent  hostility  from  our  terri 
tory.  On  January  5,  1838,  he  had  issued  a  proclama 
tion  reciting  the  seizure  of  Navy  Island  by  a  force, 
partly  Americans,  under  the  command  of  an  American, 
with  arms  and  supplies  procured  in  the  United  States, 
and  declared  that  the  neutrality  laws  would  be  rigidly 
enforced  and  the  offenders  punished.  Nor  would  they 
receive  aid  or  countenance  from  the  United  States,  into 
whatever  difficulties  they  might  be  thrown  by  their  vio- 


304  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

lation  of  friendly  territory.  On  the  same  day  Van 
Buren  sent  General  Winfield  Scott  to  the  frontier,  and 
by  special  message  asked  from  Congress  power  to  pre 
vent  such  offenses  in  advance,  as  well  as  afterwards  to 
punish  them,  —  a  request  to  which  Congress,  in  spite 
of  the  excitement  over  the  invasion  at  Schlosser,  soon 
acceded.  The  militia  of  New  York  were,  on  this  inva 
sion,  called  out  by  Governor  Marcy,  and  placed  under 
General  Scott's  command.  But  there  was  little  danger. 
On  January  13  the  insurgents  abandoned  Navy  Island. 
The  war,  for  the  time,  was  over,  although  excitement 
and  disorder  continued  on  the  border  and  the  lakes  as 
far  as  Detroit ;  and  in  the  fall  of  1838  other  incursions 
were  made  from  American  territory.  But  they  were 
fruitless  and  short-lived.  Nearly  nine  hundred  arrests 
were  made  by  the  Canadian  authorities.  Many  death 
sentences  were  imposed  and  several  executed,  and  many 
more  offenders  were  sentenced  to  transportation. 

England,  in  her  usual  fashion,  was  now  duly  waked 
to  duty  by  actual  bloodshed.  Sir  Francis  B.  Head  left 
Canada,  and  the  Melbourne  ministry  sent  over  the  Earl 
of  Durham,  one  of  the  finest  characters  in  English  pub 
lic  life,  to  be  governor-general  over  the  five  colonies  ;  to 
redress  their  wrongs;  to  conciliate,  and  perhaps  yield 
to  demands  for  self-government :  all  which  might  far 
better  have  been  done  five  years  before.  Lord  Durham 
used  a  wise  mercy  towards  the  rebels.  He  made  rapid 
progress  in  the  reforms,  and,  best  and  first  of  all,  he 
won  the  confidence  and  affection  of  the  people.  But 
England  used  to  distrust  an  English  statesman  who 
practiced  this  kind  of  rule  towards  a  dependency.  A 
malevolent  attack  of  Lord  Brougham  was  successful, 
and  Lord  Durham  returned  to  ministerial  disgrace, 


CANADIAN  INSURRECTION.  305 

• 

though  to  a  wiser  popular  applause,  soon  to  die  on  what 
ought  to  have  been  but  an  early  day  in  his  generous  and 
splendid  career.  Although  punishing  her  benefactor, 
England  was  shrewd  enough  to  accept  the  benefit.  The 
concessions  which  Lord  Durham  had  begun  were  con 
tinued,  and  Canada  became  and  has  remained  loyal. 
Before  leaving  Canada,  Lord  Durham  was  invited  by  a 
very  complimentary  letter  of  Van  Buren  to  visit  Wash 
ington,  but  the  invitation  was  courteously  declined. 

Mackenzie  was  arrested  at  Buffalo  and  indicted. 
After  his  indictment  he  addressed  many  public  meet 
ings  through  the  United  States  in  behalf  of  his  cause, 
one  at  Washington  itself.  In  1839,  however,  he  was 
tried  and  convicted.  Van  Buren,  justly  refusing  to 
pardon  him  until  he  had  served  in  prison  two  thirds  of 
his  sentence,  thus  made  for  himself  a  persistent  and 
vindictive  enemy. 

Upon  renewed  raids  late  in  1838,  the  president,  by  a 
proclamation,  called  upon  misguided  or  deluded  Ameri 
cans  to  abandon  projects  dangerous  to  their  own  coun 
try  and  fatal  to  those  whom  they  professed  a  desire  to 
relieve  ;  and,  after  various  appeals  to  good  sense  and 
patriotism,  warned  them  that,  if  taken  in  Canada,  they 
would  be  left  to  the  policy  and  justice  of  the  govern 
ment  whose  dominions  they  had,  "  without  the  shadow 
of  justification  or  excuse,  nefariously  invaded."  This 
had  no  uncertain  sound.  Van  Buren  was  promptly 
declared  to  be  a  British  tool.  The  plain  facts  were  ig 
nored  that  the  great  majority  of  the  Canadians,  however 
much  displeased  with  their  rulers,  were  hostile  to  repub 
lican  institutions  and  to  a  separation  from  England,  and 
that  the  majority  in  Canada  had  the  same  right  to  be 
governed  in  their  own  fashion  as  the  majority  here. 


306  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

• 
There  was  seen,  however,  in  this  firm  performance  of 

international  obligations,  only  additional  proof  of  Van 
Buren's  coldness  towards  popular  rights,  and  of  his 
sycophancy  to  power. 

The  system  of  allowing  to  actual  settlers,  at  the  mini 
mum  price,  a  preemption  of  public  lands  already  occu 
pied  by  them,  was  adopted  at  the  long  session  of  1837- 
1838.  Webster  joined  the  Democrats  in  favoring  the 
bill,  against  the  hot  opposition  of  Clay,  who  declared  it 
"  a  grant  of  the  property  of  the  whole  people  to  a  small 
part  of  the  people."  The  dominant  party  was  now 
wisely  committed  to  the  policy  of  using  the  public  do 
main  for  settlers,  and  not  as  mere  property  to  be  turned 
into  money.  But  a  year  or  two  before  the  latter  system 
had  in  practice  wasted  the  national  estate  and  corrupted 
the  public  with  a  debauchery  of  speculation. 

The  war  between  Mexico  and  the  American  settlers 
in  her  revolted  northeast  province  began  in  1835.  Early 
in  1836  the  heroic  defense  of  the  Alamo  against  several 
thousand  Mexicans  by  less  than  two  hundred  Ameri 
cans,  and  among  them  Davy  Crockett,  Van  Buren's 
biographer,  and  the  butchery  of  all  but  three  of  the  Amer 
icans,  had  consecrated  the  old  building,  still  proudly 
preserved  by  the  stirring  but  now  peaceful  and  pleasing 
city  of  San  Antonio,  and  had  roused  in  Texas  a  fierce 
and  resolute  hatred  of  Mexico.  In  April,  1836,  Houston 
overwhelmed  the  Mexicans  at  San  Jacinto,  and  captured 
their  president,  Santa  Ana. 

In  his  message  of  December  21,  1836,  Jackson,  al 
though  he  announced  these  successes  of  the  Texans  and 
their  expulsion  of  the  civil  authority  of  Mexico,  still 
pointed  out  to  Congress  the  disparity  of  physical  force  on 
the  side  of  Texas,  and  declared  it  prudent  that  we  should 


TEXAS.  307 

stand  aloof  until  either  Mexico  itself  or  one  of  the  great 
powers  should  have  recognized  Texan  independence,  or 
at  least  until  the  ability  of  Texas  should  have  been 
proved  beyond  cavil.  The  senate  had  then  passed  a 
resolution  for  recognition  of  Texan  independence.  But 
the  house  had  not  concurred  ;  and  before  Van  Buren's 
inauguration  Congress  had  done  no  more  than  authorize 
the  appointment  of  a  diplomatic  agent  to  Texas  when 
ever  the  president  should  be  satisfied  of  its  independence. 
In  August,  1837,  the  Texan  representative  at  Washing 
ton  laid  before  Van  Buren  a  plan  of  annexation  of  the 
revolted  Mexican  state.  The  offer  was  refused  ;  and  it 
was  declared  that  the  United  States  desired  to  remain 
neutral,  and  perceived  that  annexation  would  necessa 
rily  lead  to  war  with  Mexico.  In  December,  1837,  peti 
tions  were  presented  in  Congress  against  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  now  much  agitated  at  the  South  ;  and  Preston, 
Calhoun's  senatorial  associate  from  South  Carolina, 
offered  a  resolution  for  annexation.  Some  debate  on  the 
question  was  had  in  1838,  in  which  both  the  pro-slavery 
character  of  the  movement  and  the  anti-slavery  charac 
ter  of  the  opposition  clearly  appeared.  But  this  danger 
to  Van  Buren  was  delayed  several  years.  Nor  was  he 
yet  a  character  in  the  drama  of  the  slavery  conflict  which 
by  1837  was  well  opened.  The  agitation  over  abolition 
petitions  and  the  murder  of  Lovejoy  the  abolitionist  are 
now  readily  enough  seen  to  have  been  the  most  deeply 
significant  occurrences  in  America  between  Van  Buren's 
inauguration  and  his  defeat ;  but  they  were  as  little  part 
of  his  presidency  as  the  arrival  at  New  York  from  Liver 
pool  on  April  22  and  23,  1838,  of  the  Sirius  and  the 
Great  Western,  the  first  transatlantic  steamships.  In 
Washington  the  slavery  question  did  not  get  beyond  the 


308  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN 

halls  of  Congress.  The  White  House  remained  for 
several  years  free  from  both  the  dangers  and  the  duties 
of  the  question  accompanying  the  discussion. 

Van  Buren's  administration  pressed  upon  Mexico 
claims  arising  out  of  wrongs  to  American  citizens  and 
property  which  had  long  been  a  grievance.  Jackson 
had  thought  it  our  duty,  in  view  of  the  "  embarrassed 
condition  "  of  that  republic,  to  "  act  with  both  wisdom 
and  moderation  by  giving  to  Mexico  one  more  opportu 
nity  to  atone  for  the  past."  In  December,  1837,  Van 
Buren,  tired  of  Mexican  procrastination,  referred  the 
matter  to  Congress,  with  some  menace  in  his  tone.  In 
1840  a  treaty  was  at  last  made  for  an  arbitration  of  the 
claims,  the  king  of  Prussia  being  the  umpire.  John 
Quincy  Adams  vehemently  assailed  the  American  asser 
tion  of  these  claims,  as  intended  to  "  breed  a  war  with 
Mexico,"  and  '-as  machinery  for  the  annexation  of 
Texas ;"  and  his  violent  denunciations  have  obtained 
some  credit.  But  Adams  himself  had  been  pretty  vigor 
ous  in  the  maintenance  of  American  rights.  And  the 
plain  and  well  known  facts  are,  that  after  several  years 
of  negotiation  the  claims  were  with  perfect  moderation 
submitted  for  decision  to  a  disinterested  tribunal ;  that 
they  were  never  made  the  occasion  of  war ;  and  that 
Van  Buren  opposed  annexation. 

In  June,  1838,  James  K.  Paulding,  long  the  navy 
agent  at  New  York,  was  made  secretary  of  the  navy  in 
place  of  Mahlon  Dickerson  of  New  Jersey,  who  now  re 
signed.  Paulding  seems  to  us  rather  a  literary  than  a 
political  figure.  Besides  the  authorship  of  part  of  "  Sal 
magundi,"  of  "The  Dutchman's  Fireside,"  and  of  other 
and  agreeable  writings  grateful  to  Americans  in  the  days 
when  the  sting  of  the  question,  "  Who  reads  an  American 


AND    WASHINGTON  IRVING.  309 

book?"  lay  rather  in  its  truth  than  in  its  ill-nature, 
Paulding's  pen  had  aided  the  Republican  party  as  early 
as  Madison's  presidency.  Our  politics  have  always,  even 
at  home,  paid  some  honor  to  the  muses,  without  requir 
ing  them  to  descend  very  far  into  the  partisan  arena. 
A  curious  illustration  was  the  nomination  of  Edwin  For 
rest,  the  famous  tragedian,  for  Congress  by  the  Demo 
crats  of  New  York  in  1838,  a  nomination  which  was 
more  sensibly  declined  than  made.  An  almost  equally 
curious  instance  was  the  tender  Van  Buren  made  of  the 
secretaryship  of  the  navy  to  Washington  Irving  before 
he  offered  it  to  Paulding,  who  was  a  connection  by  mar 
riage  of  Irving's  brother.  Van  Buren  had,  it  will  be 
remembered,  become  intimately  acquainted  with  Irving 
abroad ;  and  others  than  Van  Buren  strangely  enough 
had  thought  of  him  for  political  service.  The  Jack- 
sonians  had  wanted  him  to  run  for  Congress ;  and 
Tammany  Hall  had  offered  him  a  nomination  for  mayor 
of  New  York.  Van  Buren  wrote  to  Irving  that  the 
latter  had  "  in  an  eminent  degree  those  peculiar  qualities 
which  should  distinguish  the  head  of  the  department," 
and  that  this  opinion  of  his  had  been  confirmed  by 
Irving's  friends,  Paulding  and  Kemble,  the  former  of 
whom  it  was  intimated  was  "  particularly  informed  in 
regard  to  the  services  to  be  rendered."  But  one  cannot 
doubt  that  in  writing  this  the  president  had  in  mind  the 
sort  of  service  to  the  public,  and  the  personal  pleasure 
and  rest  to  himself,  to  be  brought  by  a  delightful  and 
accomplished  man  of  letters,  who  was  no  mere  recluse, 
but  long  practiced  in  polished  and  brilliant  life  abroad, 
rather  than  any  business  or  executive  or  political  ability. 
Irving  wisely  replied  that  he  should  delight  in  full 
occupation,  and  should  take  peculiar  interest  in  the  navy 


310  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

department ;  but  that  he  shrank  from  the  harsh  turmoils 
of  life  at  Washington,  and  the  bitter  personal  hostility 
and  the  slanders  of  the  press.  A  short  career  at  Wash 
ington  would,  he  said,  render  him  "  mentally  and  physi 
cally  a  perfect  wreck."  Paulding's  appointment  to  the 
cabinet  portfolio  assigned  to  New  York  was  not  agree 
able  to  the  politicians  ;  and  they  afterwards  declared 
that,  if  Marcy  had  been  chosen  instead,  the  result  in 
1840  might  have  been  different.  The  next  Democratic 
president  gave  the  same  place  to  another  famous  man  of 
letters,  George  Bancroft. 

On  June  6,  1837,  Louis  Napoleon  wrote  the  president 
from  New  York  that  the  dangerous  illness  of  his  mother 
recalled  him  to  the  old  world ;  and  that  he  stated  the 
reason  for  his  departure  lest  the  president  might  "  have 
given  credence  to  the  calumnious  surmises  respecting  " 
him.  The  famous  adventurer  used  one  of  those  many 
phrases  of  his  which,  if  they  had  not  for  years  imposed 
on  the  world,  no  wise  man  would  believe  could  ever 
have  obtained  respect.  Van  Buren,  as  the  ruler  of  a  free 
people,  ought  to  be  advised,  the  prince  wrote,  that,  bear 
ing  the  name  he  did,  it  was  impossible  for  him  "  to  depart 
for  an  instant  from  the  path  pointed  out  to  me  by  my 
conscience,  my  honor,  and  my  duty." 

The  elections  of  1838  showed  a  recovery  from  the 
defeat  in  1837,  a  recovery  which  would  perhaps  have 
been  permanent  if  the  financial  crisis  had  been  really 
over.  Maine  wheeled  back  into  the  Van  Buren  ranks  ; 
and  Maryland  and  Ohio  now  joined  her.  In  New 
Jersey  and  Massachusetts  the  Whig  majorities  were  re 
duced  ;  and  in  New  York,  where  Seward  and  Weed  had 
established  a  political  management  quite  equal  to  the 
Regency,  the  former  was  chosen  governor  by  a  majority  of 


ELECTIONS  OF  1838.  311 

over  10,000,  but  still  less  by  5,000  than  the  Whig  major 
ity  of  1837.  The  Democrats  now  reaped  the  unpopu 
larity  of  Van  Buren's  upright  neutrality  in  the  Canadian 
troubles.  Northern  and  western  New  York  gave  heavy 
Whig  majorities.  Jefferson  county  on  the  very  border, 
which  had  stood  by  Van  Buren  even  in  1837,  went  over 
to  the  Whigs. 

Van  Buren  met  Congress  in  December,  1838,  with 
more  cheerful  words.  The  harvest  had  been  bountiful, 
he  said,  and  industry  again  prospered.  The  first  half 
century  of  our  Constitution  was  about  to  expire,  after 
proving  the  advantage  of  a  government  "entirely  de 
pendent  on  the  continual  exercise  of  the  popular  will." 
He  returned  firmly  to  his  lecture  on  economics  and 
the  currency,  drawing  happily,  but  too  soon,  a  lesson 
from  the  short  duration  of  the  suspension  of  specie  pay 
ments  in  1837  and  the  length  of  that  in  1814.  We  had 
been  saved,  he  said,  the  mortification  of  seeing  our  dis 
tresses  used  to  fasten  again  upon  us  so  "  dangerous  an 
institution  "  as  a  national  bank.  The  treasury  would  be 
able  in  the  coming  year  to  pay  off  the  $8,000,000  out 
standing  of  the  $10,000,000  of  treasury  notes  authorized 
at  the  extra  session.  Texas  had  withdrawn  its  applica 
tion  for  admission  to  the  Union.  The  final  removal 
of  the  Indian  tribes  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi 
in  accordance  with  the  Democratic  policy  was  almost 
accomplished.  There  were  but  two  blemishes  on  the 
fair  record  the  White  House  sent  to  the  Capitol. 
Swartwout,  Jackson's  collector  of  New  York,  was 
found,  after  his  supersession  by  Jesse  Hoyt,  to  be  a 
defaulter  on  a  vast  scale.  His  defalcations,  the  presi 
dent  carefully  pointed  out,  had  gone  on  for  seven  years, 
as  well  while  public  moneys  were  kept  with  the  United 


312  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

States  Bank  and  while  they  were  kept  with  state  banks, 
as  while  they  were  kept  by  public  officers.  It  was 
broadly  intimated  that  this  disgrace  was  not  unrelated 
to  the  general  theory  which  had  so  long  connected  the 
collection  and  custody  of  public  moneys  with  the  ad 
vancement  of  private  interests  ;  and  the  president  asked 
for  a  law  making  it  a  felony  to  apply  public  moneys  to 
private  uses.  Swartwout's  appointment  in  1829,  as  has 
been  said,  was  strenuously  opposed  by  Van  Buren  as  unfit 
to  be  made.  After  a  year  or  two  Jackson  returned  to  Van 
Buren  his  written  protest,  saying  that  time  had  proved 
his  belief  in  Swartwout's  unfitness  to  be  a  mistake.  Van 
Buren's  own  appointment  to  the  place  was,  however,  far 
from  an  ideal  one.  Jesse  Hoyt  was  shown  by  his  pub 
lished  correspondence  —  a  veritable  instance,  by  the  way, 
of  "stolen  sweets"  —  to  have  been  a  shrewd,  able  man, 
who  enjoyed  the  strangely  varied  confidence  of  many 
distinguished,  discreet,  and  honorable  men,  and  of  many 
very  different  persons,  ranging  through  a  singular  gamut 
of  religion,  morals,  statesmanship,  economics,  politics, 
patronage,  banking,  trade,  stock  gambling,  and  betting. 
The  superior  part  of  Hoyt's  friends  and  abilities  pal 
liates,  but  does  not  excuse,  his  appointment  to  a  great 
post. 

The  second  Florida  war  still  dragged  out  its  slow  and 
murderous  length.  The  Seminoles  under  pressure  had 
yielded  to  Jackson's  firm  policy  of  removing  all  the  In 
dian  tribes  to  the  west  of  the  Mississippi.  The  policy 
seemed,  or  rather  it  was,  often  cruel,  as  is  so  much  of 
the  progress  of  civilization.  But  the  removal  was  wise 
and  necessary.  Tribal  and  independent  governments 
by  nomadic  savages  could  not  be  tolerated  within  re 
gions  devoted  to  the  arts  and  the  government  of  white 


SECOND  FLORIDA  WAR.  313 

men.  Whatever  the  theoretical  rights  of  property  in 
land,  no  civilized  race  near  vast  areas  of  lands  fit  for 
the  tillage  of  a  crowding  population  has  ever  permitted 
them  to  remain  mere  hunting  grounds  for  savages. 
The  Seminoles  in  1832,  1833,  and  1834  agreed  to  go 
west  upon  terms  like  those  accepted  by  other  Indians. 
The  removal  was  to  take  place,  one  third  of  the  tribe 
in  each  of  the  three  years  1833,  1834,  and  1835 ;  but 
the  dark-skinned  men,  as  their  white  brothers  would 
have  done,  found  or  invented  excuses  for  not  keeping 
their  promise  of  voluntary  expatriation.  Late  in  1835, 
when  coercion,  although  it  had  not  yet  been  employed 
against  the  Seminoles,  was  still  feared  by  them,  they  rose 
under  their  famous  leader,  the  half-breed  Powell,  better 
known  as  Osceola,  and  massacred  the  federal  agent  and 
Major  Dade,  and  107  out  of  111  soldiers  under  him. 
Then  followed  a  series  of  butcheries  and  outrages  upon 
white  men  of  which  we  have  heard,  and  doubtless  of 
crimes  enough  upon  Indians  of  which  we  have  not  heard. 
Among  the  everglades,  the  swamps  and  lakes  of  Florida, 
its  scorching  sands  and  impenetrable  thickets,  a  difficult, 
tedious,  inglorious,  and  costly  contest  went  on.  Military 
evolutions  and  tactics  were  of  little  value ;  it  was  a  war 
of  ambushes  and  assassination.  Osceola,  coming  with 
a  flag  of  truce,  was  taken  by  General  Jessup,  the  defense 
for  his  capture  being  his  violation  of  a  former  parole. 
He  was  sent  to  Fort  Moultrie,  in  Charleston  harbor, 
and  there  died,  after  furnishing  recitations  to  genera 
tions  of  school-boys,  and  sentiment  to  many  of  their 
elders.  Van  Buren  had  been  compelled  to  ask  $1,600,000 
from  Congress  at  the  extra  session.  Before  his  ad 
ministration  was  ended  nearly  $14,000,000  had  been 
spent ;  and  not  until  1842  did  the  war  end.  It  was  one 


314  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

of  the  burdens  of  the  administration  which  served  to 
irritate  a  people  already  uneasy  for  deeper  and  more 
general  reasons.  The  prowess  of  the  Indian  chief,  his 
eloquence,  his  pathetic  end,  the  miseries  and  wrongs  of 
the  Aborigines,  the  cost  and  delay  of  the  war,  all  reen- 
forced  the  denunciation  of  Van  Buren  by  men  who 
made  no  allowance  for  embarrassments  which  could  be 
surmounted  by  no  ability,  because  they  were  inevitable 
to  the  settlement  by  a  civilized  race  of  lands  used  by 
savages.  Time,  however,  has  vindicated  the  justice  and 
mercy  as  well  as  the  policy  of  the  removal,  and  of  the 
establishment  of  the  Indian  Territory. 

A  few  days  before  the  close  of  the  session  Van  Buren 
asked  Congress  to  consider  the  dispute  with  Great  Brit 
ain  over  the  northeast  boundary.  Both  Maine  and  New 
Brunswick  threatened,  by  rival  military  occupations  of 
the  disputed  territory,  to  precipitate  war.  Van  Buren 
assented  to  the  civil  authorities  of  Maine  protecting  the 
forests  from  destruction  ;  but  disapproved  any  military 
seizure,  and  told  the  state  authorities  that  he  should  pro 
pose  to  Great  Britain  an  arbitration.  If,  however,  New 
Brunswick  sought  a  military  occupation,  he  should  de 
fend  the  territory  as  part  of  the  state.  Congress  at 
once  authorized  the  president  to  call  out  50,000  volun 
teers,  and  put  at  his  disposal  a  credit  of  $10,000,000. 
Van  Buren  persisted  in  his  great  effort  peacefully  to 
adjust  the  claims  of  our  chronically  belligerent  north 
eastern  patriots,  — in  Maine  as  in  New  York  finding 
his  fate  in  his  duty  firmly  and  calmly  to  restrain  a  local 
sentiment  inspiring  voters  of  great  political  importance 
to  him.  The  "  news  from  Maine  "  in  1840  told  of  the 
angry  contempt  the  hardy  lumbermen  felt  for  the  presi 
dent's  perfectly  statesmanlike  treatment  of  the  question. 


ENTHUSIASTIC  DEMONSTRATIONS.  315 

In  the  summer  of  1839  Van  Buren  visited  his  old 
home  at  Kinderhook  ;  and  on  his  way  there  and  back 
enjoyed   a   burst   of    enthusiasm  at  York,  Harrisburg, 
Lebanon,    Reading,  and  Easton    in     Pennsylvania,    at 
Newark  and  Jersey  City  in  New  Jersey,  and  at  New 
York,  Hudson,  and  Albany  in  his  own  state.       There 
were   salutes   of  artillery,    pealing   of   bells,    mounted 
escorts  in  blue  and  white  scarfs,  assemblings  of  "  youth 
and  beauty,"  the  complimentary  addresses,  the  throng 
ing  of  citizens  "  to  grasp  the  hand  of  the  man  whom 
they  had   delighted   to   honor,"  and   all  the  rest   that 
makes  up  the   ovations   of   Americans  to   their  black- 
coated  rulers.     He  landed  in  New  York  at  Castle  Gar 
den,  amid  the  salutes  of  the    forts  on  Bedloe's,   Gov 
ernor's,  and  Staten  Islands,  and  of  a  "  seventy-four," 
whose  yards  were  covered  with  white-uniformed  sailors. 
After  the   reception   in  Castle  Garden  he  mounted  a 
spirited  black  horse  and  reviewed  six  thousand  troops 
assembled  on  the  Battery  ;  and  then  went  in  procession 
along  Broadway  to  Chatham  Street,  thence  to  the  Bow 
ery,  and  through  Broome  Street  and  Broadway  back  to 
the  City  Hall  Park.     Not  since  Lafayette's  visit   had 
there  been  so  fine  a  reception.     At  Kinderhook  he  was 
overwhelmed   with   the   affectionate   pride   of   his   old 
neighbors.      He    declined   public  dinners,  and   by  the 
simple  manner  of  his  travel  offered  disproof  of  the  sto 
ries  about  his  "  English  servants,  horses  and  carriages." 
The  journey  was  not,  however,  like  the  good-natured 
and  unpartisan  presidential  journeys  of  our  time.     The 
Whigs  often  churlishly  refused  to  help  in  what  they  said 
was   an  electioneering  tour.     Seward  publicly  refused 
the  invitation  of  the  common  council  of  New  York  to 
participate  in  the  president's  reception,  because  the  state 


316  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

had  honored  him  with  the  office  of  governor  for  his  dis 
approval  of  Van  Buren's  political  character  and  public 
policy,  and  because  an  acceptance  of  the  invitation 
ki  would  afford  evidence  of  inconsistency  and  insincer 
ity."  Van  Buren's  own  friends  gave  a  party  air  to 
much  of  the  welcome.  Democratic  committees  were 
conspicuous  in  the  ceremonies  ;  and  in  many  of  the 
addresses  much  that  was  said  of  his  administration  was 
fairly  in  a  dispute  certain  to  last  until  the  next  year's 
election  was  over.  Van  Buren  could  hardly  have  ob 
jected  to  the  coldness  of  the  Whigs,  for  his  own  speeches, 
though  decorous  and  respectful  to  the  last  degree  to 
those  who  differed  from  him.  were  undisguised  appeals 
for  popular  support  of  his  financial  policy.  At  New 
York  he  referred  to  the  threatening  dissatisfaction  in 
his  own  state  concerning  his  firm  treatment  of  the  Cana 
dian  troubles.  But  he  was  persuaded,  he  said,  that 
good  sense  and  ultimately  just  feeling  wpuld  give  short 
duration  to  these  unfavorable  impressions.  • 

The  president  was  too  experienced  and  cool  in  judg 
ment  to  exaggerate  the  significance  of  superficial  demon 
strations  like  these,  which  often  seemed  conclusive  to  his 
exuberant  rival  Clay.  He  was  encouraged,  however,  by 
the  elections  of  1839.  In  Ohio  the  Whigs  had  been 
"  pretty  essentially  used  up,"  though  unfortunately  not 
to  remain  so  a  twelvemonth.  In  Massachusetts  Mor 
ton,  the  Van  Buren  candidate  for  governor,  was  elected 
by  just  one  vote  more  than  a  majority  of  the  102,066 
votes  cast.  Georgia,  New  Jersey,  and  Mississippi  gave 
administration  majorities.  In  New  York  the  adverse 
majority  which  in  1837  had  been  over  15,000,  and  in 
1838  over  10,000,  was  now  less  than  4,000,  in  spite  of 
the  disaffection  along  the  border  counties.  It  was  no? 


RETURN  OF  THE  CRISIS.  317 

an  unsatisfactory  result,  although  for  the  first  time 
since  1818  the  legislature  was  completely  lost.  Another 
year,  Van  Buren  now  hoped,  would  bring  a  complete 
recovery  from  the  blow  of  1837.  But  the  autumn  of 
1839  had  also  brought  a  blast,  to  grow  more  and  more 
chilling  and  disastrous. 

In  the  early  fall  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  agreed 
to  loan  Pennsylvania  $2,000,000  ;  and  for  the  loan  ob 
tained  the  privilege  of  issuing  $5  notes,  having  before 
been  restricted  to  notes  of  $20  and  upwards.  "  Thus 
has  the  Van  Buren  state  of  Pennsylvania,"  it  was 
boasted,  "  enabled  the  banks  to  overcome  the  reckless 
system  of  a  Van  Buren  national  administration."  The 
price  of  cotton,  which  had  risen  to  16  cents  a  pound,  fell 
in  the  summer  of  1839,  and  in  1840  touched  as  low  a 
point  as  5  cents.  In  the  Northwest  many  banks  had 
not  yet  resumed  since  1837.  To  avoid  execution  sales 
it  was  said  that  two  hundred  plantations  had  been  aban 
doned  and  their  slaves  taken  to  Texas.  The  sheriff,  in 
stead  of  the  ancient  return,  nulla  bona,  was  said,  in  the 
grim  sport  of  the  frontier,  to  endorse  on  the  fruitless 
writs  "  G.  T.,"  meaning  "  Gone  to  Texas."  A  money 
stringency  again  appeared  in  England,  as  in  1837.  Its 
exportation  of  goods  and  money  to  America  had  again 
become  enormous.  The  customs  duties  collected  in 
1839  were  over  $23,000,000,  and  about  the  same  as  they 
had  been  in  1836,  having  fallen  in  1837  to  $11,000,000, 
and  afterwards  in  1840  falling  to  $13,000,000.  Specu 
lation  revived,  the  land  sales  exceeding  $7,000,000  in 
1839,  while  they  had  been  $3,700,000  in  1838,  and 
afterwards  fell  to  $3,400,000  in  1840.  Under  the 
pressure  from  England  the  Bank  of  the  United  States 
sank  with  a  crash.  The  "  Philadelphia  Gazette,"  com- 


318  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

placently  ignoring  the  plain  reasons  for  months  set  be 
fore  its  eyes,  said  that  the  disaster  had  "  its  chief  cause 
in  the  revulsion  of  the  opium  trade  with  the  Chinese ; " 
that  upon  the  news  that  the  Orientals  would  no  longer 
admit  the  drug  the  Bank  of  England  had  "  fairly 
reeled  ;  "  and  that,  the  balance  of  trade  being  against  us, 
we  had  to  dishonor  our  paper.  Explanations  of  like 
frivolity  got  wide  credence.  The  Philadelphia  banks 
suspended  on  October  9,  1839,  the  banks  of  Baltimore 
the  next  day,  and  in  a  few  days  the  banks  in  the  North 
and  West  followed.  The  banks  of  New  York  and  New 
England,  except  those  of  Providence,  continued  firm. 
Although  the  excitement  of  1839  did  not  equal  that  of 
1837,  there  was  a  duller  and  completer  despondency.  It 
was  at  last  known  that  the  recuperative  power  of  even 
our  own  proud  and  bounding  country  had  limits.  Years 
were  yet  necessary  to  a  recovery.  But  the  presidential 
election  would  not,  alas  !  wait  years.  With  no  faltering, 
however,  Van  Buren  met  Congress  in  December,  1839. 
He  began  his  message  with  a  regret  that  he  could  not 
announce  a  year  of  "  unalloyed  prosperity."  There 
ought  never,  as  presidential  messages  had  run,  to  be 
any  alloy  in  the  prosperity  of  the  American  people. 
But  the  harvest,  he  said,  had  been  exuberant,  and  after 
all  (for  the  grapes  of  trade  and  manufacture  were  a 
little  sour),  the  steady  devotion  of  the  husbandman  was 
the  surest  source  of  national  prosperity.  A  part  of  the 
$10,000,000  of  treasury  notes  was  still  outstanding,  and 
he  hoped  that  they  might  be  paid.  We  must  not  resort 
to  the  ruinous  practice  of  supplying  supposed  necessities 
by  new  loans ;  a  permanent  debt  was  an  evil  with  no 
equivalent.  The  expenditures  for  1838,  the  first  year 
over  whose  appropriations  Van  Buren  had  had  control, 


RETURN  OF  THE   CRISIS.  319 

had  been  less  than  those  of  1837.     In  1839  they  had 
been  $6,000,000  less  than  in  1838 ;  and  for  1840  they 
would  be  $5,000,000  less  than  in  1839.     The  collection 
and  disbursement  of  public  moneys  by  public  officers 
rather  than  by  banks  had,  since  the  bank  suspensions  in 
1837,  been  carried  on  with  unexpected  cheapness  and 
ease  ;  and  legislation  was  alone  wanting  to  insure  to  the 
system  the  highest  security  and  facility.   Nothing  daunted 
by  the  second  disaster  so  lately  clouding  his  political 
future,  Van   Buren  sounded  another  blast  against  the 
banks.    With  unusual  abundance  of  harvests,  with  manu 
factures  richly  rewarded,  with  our  granaries  and  store 
houses  filled  with  surplus  for  export,  with  no  foreign  war, 
with  nothing  indeed  to  endanger  well -managed  banks, 
this  banking  disaster  had  come.     The  government  ought 
not  to  be  dependent  on  banks  as  its  depositories,  for  the 
banks  out  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  were  depend 
ent  upon  the  banks  in  those  great  cities,  and  the  latter 
banks  in  turn  upon  London,  "  the  centre   of  the  credit 
system."     With  some    truth,  but  still  with  a  touch  of 
demagogy,   venial   perhaps  in  the   face  of  the  blatant 
and  silly  outcries  against  him  from  very  intelligent  and 
respectable  people,  he  said  that  the  founding  of  a  new 
bank  in  a  distant  American  village  placed  its  business 
"  within  the  influence  of  the  money  power  of  England." 
Let  us  then,  he  argued,  have  gold  and  silver  and  not 
bank-notes,  at  least  in  our  public  transactions ;  let  us 
keep  public  moneys  out  of  the  banks.    Again  he  attacked 
the  national  bank  scheme.     In  1817  and  1818,  in  1823, 
in  1831,  and  in  1834  the  United  States  Bank  had  swelled 
and  maddened  the    tides    of   banking,  but  had  seldom 
allayed  or    safely  directed  them.     Turning  with  seem 
ingly  cool  resolution,  but  with  hidden  anxiety,  to  the 


320  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

menacing  distresses  of  the  American  voters,  he  did  not 
flinch  or  look  for  fair  or  flattering  words.  We  must  not 
turn  for  relief,  he  said,  to  gigantic  banks,  or  splendid 
though  profitless  railroads  and  canals.  Relief  was  to  be 
sought,  not  by  the  increase,  but  by  the  diminution  of 
debt.  The  faith  of  states  already  pledged  was  to  be 
punctiliously  kept ;  but  we  must  be  chary  of  further 
pledges.  The  bounties  of  Providence  had  come  to  re 
duce  the  consequences  of  past  errors.  "  But  let  it  be 
indelibly  engraved  on  our  minds,"  he  said,  "  that  relief 
is  not  to  be  found  in  expedients.  Indebtedness  cannot 
be  lessened  by  borrowing  more  money,  or  by  changing 
the  form  of  the  debt." 

The  house  of  representatives  was  so  divided  that  its 
control  depended  upon  whether  five  Whig  or  Demo 
cratic  congressmen  from  New  Jersey  should  be  admit 
ted.  They  had  been  voted  for  upon  a  general  ticket 
through  the  whole  state  ;  and  the  Whig  governor  and 
council  had  given  the  certificate  of  election  to  the  Whigs 
by  acquiescing  in  the  actions  of  the  two  county  clerks 
who  had,  for  irregularities,  thrown  out  the  Democratic 
districts  of  South  Amboy  and  Millville.  A  collision 
arose  curiously  like  the  dispute  over  the  electoral  returns 
from  Florida  and  Louisiana  in  1877.  This  exclusion 
of  the  two  districts  the  Democrats  insisted  to  have  been 
wrongful ;  and  not  improbably  with  reason,  for  at  the 
next  election  in  1839  the  state,  upon  the  popular  vote, 
gave  a  substantial  majority  against  the  Whigs,  although 
by  the  district  division  of  the  state  a  majority  of  the 
legislature  were  Whigs  and  reflected  the  Whig  gov 
ernor.  The  clerk  of  the  national  house  had,  according 
to  usage,  prepared  a  roll  of  members,  which  he  pro 
ceeded  to  call.  He  seerns  to  have  placed  on  the  roll  the 


DISPUTED   ORGANIZATION   OF  THE  HOUSE.      321 

names  of  the  New  Jersey  representatives  holding  the 
governor's  certificates.     But  before  calling  their  names, 
he  stated  to  the  house  that  there  were  rival  credentials  ; 
that  he  felt  that  he  had  no  power  to  decide  upon  the 
contested  rights;  and  that,  if   the  house  approved,  he 
would  pass  over  the  names  until  the  call  of  the  other 
states  was  finished.     The  rival  credentials   included  a 
record  of  the  votes  upon  which  the  governor's  certificate 
was  presumed  to  be  based.     Objection  was   made   to 
passing  New  Jersey,  and  one  of  the  governor's  certifi 
cates  was  read.     The  New  Jerseymen  with  certificates 
insisted  that  their  names  should  be  called.     The  clerk 
declined  to  take  any  step  without  the  authority  of  the 
house,  holding  that  he  was  in  no  sense  a  chairman.     He 
behaved  in  the  case  with  modesty  and  decorum,  and  the 
savage  criticisms  upon  him  seem  to  have    no  founda 
tion  except  this  refusal  of  his  to  decide  upon  the  prima 
facie  right  to  the  New  Jersey  seats,  or  to  act  as  chair 
man  except  upon  unanimous  consent.     He  was  clearly 
right.     He  had  no  power.     The  very  roll  he  prepared, 
and  his  reading  it,  had  no  force  except  such  as  the  house 
chose  to  give  them.     Upon  any  other  theory  he  would 
practically  wield  an  enormous  power  justified  neither  by 
the  Constitution  nor  by  any  law.     On  the  fourth  day  of 
tumult  a  simple  and  lawful  remedy  was  discovered  to 
be  at  hand.     Any  member  could  himself  act  as  chair 
man  to  put  his  own  motion  for  the  appointment  of  a 
temporary  speaker ;  and  if  a  majority  acquiesced,  there 
was  at  once  an  organization   without  the    clerk's    aid. 
This   was  in  precise  accord    with   the    attitude    of  the 
clerk,  hotly  abused  as  he  was  by  Adams  and  others  who 
adopted  his  position.     So  Adams  proposed  himself   to 
put  the  question  on  his  own  motion  to  call  the  roll  with 


322  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  members  holding  certificates.  Further  confusion 
then  ensued,  which  was  terminated  by  Rhett  of  South 
Carolina,  who  moved  that  John  Quincy  Adams  act  as 
chairman  until  a  speaker  should  be  chosen.  Rhett  put 
his  own  motion,  and  it  was  carried.  Adams  took  the 
chair,  rules  were  adopted,  and  order  succeeded  chaos. 
None  of  the  New  Jerseymen  were  permitted  to  vote  for 
speaker,  but  a  few  Calhoun  Democrats  refused  to  vote 
for  the  administration  candidate.  Most  of  the  adminis 
tration  members  offered  to  accept  a  Calhoun  man  ;  but 
a  few  of  them,  naturally  angry  at  South  Carolina  dic 
tation,  refused,  under  Benton's  advice,  to  vote  for  him. 
At  last  the  Whigs  joined  the  Calhoun  men,  and  ended 
this  extraordinaiy  contest.  The  speaker,  Robert  M.  T. 
Hunter,  was  a  so-called  states-rights  man,  and  a  sup 
porter  of  the  independent  treasury  scheme.  He  had 
the  fortune,  after  a  singularly  varied  and  even  impor 
tant  career  in  the  United  States  and  the  Confederate 
States,  to  be  appointed  by  President  Cleveland  to  the 
petty  place  of  collector  of  customs  at  Tappahannock,  in 
Virginia,  and  to  die  among  Americans  who  were  famil 
iar  with  his  prominence  fifty  years  ago,  but  supposed 
him  long  since  buried.  The  clerk,  Hugh  A.  Garland, 
was  reflected,  in  spite  of  what  Adams  in  his  diary,  after 
his  picturesque  but  utterly  unjustifiable  fashion,  called 
the  "  baseness  of  his  treachery  to  his  trust."  The 
Whig  New  Jerseymen  were  refused  seats,  and  the  ap 
parent  perversion  of  the  popular  vote  was  rightly  de 
feated  by  seating  their  rivals.  The  Whigs  posed  as 
defenders  of  the  sanctity  of  state  authority,  and  sought, 
upon  that  political  issue,  to  force  the  Van  Buren  men 
to  be  the  apologists  for  centralization. 

It  was  at  this  session  that  the  sub-treasury  bill  was 


ELECTION   OF  1840.  323 

passed.  As  a  sort  of  new  declaration  of  independence 
Van  Buren  signed  it  on  July  4,  1840.  His  long  and 
honorable  and  his  greatest  battle  was  won.  It  was  the 
triumph  of  a  really  great  cause.  The  people,  by  their 
labor  and  capital,  were  to  support  the  federal  govern 
ment  as  a  mere  agency  for  limited  purposes.  That 
government  was  not,  in  this  way  at  least,  to  support  or 
direct  or  control  either  the  people  or  their  labor  or 
capital.  But  the  captain  fell  at  the  time  of  his  victory. 
The  financial  disaster  of  1839  had  exhausted  the  good 
nature  and  patience  of  the  people.  Dissertations  on 
finance  and  economics,  however  wise,  now  served  to 
irritate  and  disgust.  These  cool  admonitions  to  econ 
omy  and  a  minding  of  one's  business  were  at  last  for 
a  year  or  two  popularly  believed  to  be  heartless  and 
repulsive. 

In  1840  took  place  the  most  extraordinary  of  presi 
dential  campaigns.  While  Congress  was  wrangling 
over  the  New  Jersey  episode  in  December,  1839,  the 
Whig  national  convention  again  nominated  Harrison  for 
president.  Tyler  was  taken  from  the  ranks  of  seceding 
Democrats  as  the  candidate  for  vice-president.  The 
slaughter  of  Henry  Clay,  the  father  of  the  Whig  party, 
had  been  effected  by  the  now  formidable  Whig  politi 
cians  of  New  York,  cunningly  marshalled  by  Thurlow 
Weed.  Availability  had  its  first  complete  triumph  in 
our  national  politics.  They  had  not  come,  Governor 
Barbour  of  Virginia,  the  president  of  the  Whig  conven 
tion,  said,  to  whine  after  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  but  to 
give  perpetuity  to  republican  institutions.  To  reach 
this  end  (not  very  explicitly  or  intelligibly  defined),  it 
mattered  not  what  letters  of  the  alphabet  spelled  the 
name  of  the  candidate  ;  for  his  part,  he  could  sing  Ho- 


324  MARTIN  VAN  BUREtf. 

sanna  to  any  alphabetical  combination.  No  platform  or 
declaration  of  principles  was  adopted,  lest  some  of  those 
discontented  with  Van  Buren  should  find  there  a  coun 
ter-irritant.  The  candidates,  in  accepting  their  nomi 
nations,  refrained  from  political  discussion.  Harrison 
stood  for  the  plain,  honest  citizen,  coming,  as  one  of  the 
New  York  conventions  said,  "  like  another  Cincinnatus 
from  his  plough,"  resolute  for  a  generous  administra 
tion,  and  ready  to  diffuse  prosperity  and  to  end  hard 
times.  Tyler,  formerly  a  strict  constructionist  member 
of  the  Jackson  party,  was  nominated  to  catch  votes,  in 
spite  of  his  perfectly  well  known  opposition  to  the  whole 
Whig  theory  of  government. 

The  Democratic,  or  Democratic-Republican,  conven 
tion  met  at  Baltimore  on  May  5,  1840.  The  party 
name  was  now  definitely  and  exclusively  adopted. 
Among  the  delegates  were  men  long  afterwards  famous 
in  the  later  Republican  party,  John  A.  Dix,  Hannibal 
Hamlin,  Simon  Cameron.  There  was  an  air  of  despon 
dency  about  the  convention,  for  the  enthusiasm  over 
"  log  cabin  and  hard  cider  "  was  already  abroad.  But 
the  convention  without  wavering  announced  its  belief  in 
a  limited  federal  power,  in  the  separation  of  public 
moneys  from  banking  institutions ;  and  its  opposition  to 
internal  improvements  by  the  nation,  to  the  federal  as 
sumption  of  state  debts,  to  the  fostering  of  one  industry 
so  as  to  injure  another,  to  raising  more  money  than  was 
required  for  necessary  expenses  of  government,  and  to 
a  national  bank.  Slavery  now  took  for  a  long  time  its 
place  in  the  party  platform.  The  convention  declared 
the  constitutional  inability  of  Congress  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  states,  and  that  all  efforts  of  abolitionists 
to  induce  Congress  to  interfere  with  slavery  were  alarm- 


ELECTION  OF  1840.  3^5 

ing  and  dangerous  to  the  Union.  An  elaborate  address 
to  the  people  was  issued.  It  began  with  a  clear,  and 
for  a  political  campaign  a  reasonably  moderate,  defense 
of  Van  Buren's  administration  ;  it  renewed  the  well- 
worn  arguments  for  the  limited  activity  of  government ; 
it  made  a  silly  assertion  that  Harrison  was  a  Federalist, 
and  an  insinuation  that  the  glory  of  his  military  career 
was  doubtful ;  it  denounced  the  abolitionists,  whose 
fanaticism  it  charged  the  Whigs  with  enlisting  in  their 
cause.  In  closing,  it  recalled  the  Democratic  revolution 
of  1800  which  broke  the  "  iron  rod  of  Federal  rule," 
and  contrasted  the  "  costly  and  stately  pageants  ad 
dressed  merely  to  the  senses  "  by  the  Whigs  with  the 
truth  and  reason  of  the  Democracy. 

During  the  canvass  Van  Buren  submitted  to  frequent 
interrogation.  In  a  fashion  that  would  seem  fatal  to  a 
modern  candidate,  he  wrote  to  political  friends  and 
enemies  alike,  letter  after  letter,  restating  his  political 
opinions.  Especially  was  it  sought  to  arouse  southern 
distrust  of  him.  He  was  accused,  with  fire-eating  anger, 
of  having  approved  a  sentence  of  a  court-martial  against 
a  naval  lieutenant  which  was  based  upon  the  testimony 
of  negroes.  He  reiterated  what  he  had  already  said 
upon  slavery ;  but  late  in  the  canvass  he  went  one  step 
further.  When  asked  his  opinion  as  to  the  treatment 
by  Congress  of  the  abolition  petitions,  he  replied,  justly 
enough,  that  the  president  could  have  no  concern  with 
that  matter  ;  but  lest  he  should  be  charged  with  "  non- 
committalism,"  he  declared  that  Congress  was  fully  jus 
tified  in  adopting  the  "  gag  "  rule.  For  years  the  peti 
tions  had  been  received  and  referred.  On  one  occasion 
in  each  house  the  subject  had  been  considered  upon  a 
report  of  a  committee,  and  decided  against  the  petition- 


MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

ers  with  almost  entire  unanimity.  The  rule  had  been 
adopted  only  after  it  was  clear  that  the  petitioners  sim 
ply  sought  to  make  Congress  an  instrument  of  an  agita 
tion  which  might  lead  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  It 
was  thus  that  Van  Buren  made  his  extreme  concession 
to  the  slavocracy.  And  there  was  obvious  a  material 
excuse.  No  president  while  in  office  could  approve  the 
perversion  of  legislative  procedure  from  the  making  of 
laws  to  be  a  mere  stimulant  of  moral  excitement.  To 
encourage  or  justify  petitions  intended  to  inflame  public 
sentiment  against  a  wrong  might  be  legitimate  for  some 
men,  however  well  they  knew,  as  Adams  said  he  knew, 
that  the  body  addressed  ought  not  to  grant  the  peti 
tioners'  prayers.  Such  a  course  might  be  noble  and 
praiseworthy  for  a  private  citizen,  or  possibly  for  a 
member  of  Congress  representing  the  exalted  moral  sen 
timent  of  a  single  district.  It  would  be  highly  illegiti 
mate  for  a  man  holding  a  great  public  office,  and  there 
representing  the  entire  people  and  its  established  sys 
tem  of  laws.  John  Quincy  Adams,  under  his  sense  of 
duty  as  president,  had  in  1828  pressed  the  humiliating 
claim  that  England  should  surrender  American  slaves 
escaped  to  English  freedom  ;  and  there  is  little  reason 
to  doubt  that,  if  he  had  remained  in  the  field  of  respon 
sible  and  executive  public  life,  he  would  have  agreed 
with  Van  Buren  in  his  treatment  of  the  matter  of  the 
abolition  petitions,  or  rather  in  his  expressions  from  the 
White  House  about  them. 

Harrison  hastened  to  clear  his  skirts  of  abolitionism. 
Congress  could  not,  he  declared,  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  without  the  consent  of  Virginia 
and  Maryland  and  of  the  District  itself.  For,  as  he 
argued,  ignobly  applying,  as  well  as  misquoting,  the 


ELECTION  OF  1840.  327 

American  words  solemnly  lauded  by  Lord  Chatham  in 
his  speech  on  Quartering  Soldiers  in  Boston,  "  what  a 
man  has  honestly  acquired  is  absolutely  his  own,  which 
he  may  freely  give,  but  which  cannot  be  taken  from 
him  without  his  consent."  He  denounced  as  a  slander 
the  charge  that  he  was  an  abolitionist,  or  that  the  vote 
he  had  given  against  anti-slavery  restriction  in  Missouri 
had  violated  his  conscience.  He  declared  for  the  right 
of  petition,  which  indeed  nobody  disputed  ;  but  he  did 
not  say  what  course  should  be  taken  with  the  anti-slavery 
petitions,  which  was  the  real  question  to  be  answered. 
The  discussion  by  the  citizens  of  the  free  states  of  slav 
ery  in  the  slave  states  was  not,  he  said,  "  sanctioned  by 
the  Constitution."  "  Methinks,"  he  said  at  Dayton,  "  I 
hear  a  soft  voice  asking,  Are  you  in  favor  of  paper 
money  ?  I  am  ;  "  and  to  that  there  were  "  shouts  of 
applause." 

In  no  presidential  canvass  in  America  has  there  been, 
as  Mr.  Schurz  well  says  in  his  life  of  Henry  Clay,  "  more 
enthusiasm  and  less  thought"  than  in  the  Whig  canvass 
of  1840.  The  people  were  rushing  as  from  a  long  re 
straint.  Wise  saws  about  the  duties  of  government  had 
become  nauseating.  A  plain  every-day  man  administer 
ing  a  paternal  and  affectionate  government  was  the  rul 
ing  text,  while  Tyler  and  his  strict  construction  quietly 
served  their  turn  with  some  of  the  doctrinaires  at  the 
South.  The  nation,  Clay  said,  was  "like  the  ocean 
when  convulsed  by  some  terrible  storm."  There  was 
what  he  called  a  "  rabid  appetite  for  public  discussions." 

Webster's  campaign  speeches  probably  marked  the 
height  of  the  splendid  and  effectual  flood  of  eloquence 
now  poured  over  the  land.  The  breeze  of  popular  ex 
citement,  he  said,  with  satisfactory  magniloquence,  was 


328  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

flowing  everywhere ;  it  fanned  the  air  in  Alabama  and 
the  Carolinas  ;  and  crossing  the  Potomac  and  the  Alle- 
ghenies,  to  mingle  with  the  gales  of  the  Empire  State 
and  the  mountain  blasts  of  New  England,  would  blow  a 
perfect  hurricane.  "  Every  breeze,"  he  declared,  "  says 
change  ;  the  cry,  the  universal  cry,  is  for  a  change."  He 
had  not,  indeed,  been  born  in  a  log  cabin,  but  his  elder 
brothers  and  sisters  had ;  he  wept  to  think  of  those  who 
had  left  it ;  and  if  he  failed  in  affectionate  veneration 
for  him  who  raised  it,  then  might  his  name  and  the 
name  of  his  posterity  be  blotted  from  the  memory  of 
mankind.  He  touched  the  bank  question  lightly  ;  he 
denounced  the  sub-treasury  as  "  the  first  in  a  new  series 
of  ruthless  experiments,"  and  declared  that  Van  Buren's 
"  abandonment  of  the  currency  "  was  fatal.  Forgetting 
who  had  supported  and  who  had  opposed  the  continued 
distribution  of  surplus  revenues  among  the  states,  he 
condemned  the  president  for  the  low  state  of  the  treas 
ury  ;  and  notwithstanding  it  declared  his  approval  of  a 
generous  policy  of  internal  improvements.  He  would  not 
accuse  the  president  of  seeking  to  play  the  part  of  Caesar 
or  Cromwell  because  Mr.  Poinsett,  his  secretary  of  war, 
had  recommended  a  federal  organization  of  militia,  the 
necessity  or  convenience  of  which,  it  was  supposed,  had 
been  demonstrated  by  the  Canadian  troubles  ;  but  the 
plan,  he  said,  was  expensive,  unconstitutional,  and  dan 
gerous  to  our  liberties.  He  was  careful  to  say  nothing 
of  slavery  or  the  right  of  petition.  Only  in  brief  and 
casual  sentences  did  he  even  touch  the  charges  that  Van 
Buren  had  treated  political  contests  as  "  rightfully 
struggles  for  office  and  emolument,"  and  that  federal 
officers  had  been  assessed  in  proportion  to  their  salaries 
for  partisan  purposes.  The  president  was  pictured  as 


ELECTION  OF  1840.  329 

full  of  cynical  and  selfish  disregard  of  the  people  ;  he 
had  disparaged  the  credit  of  the  states ;  he  had  accused 
Madison,  and,  monstrous  sacrilege,  even  Washington,  of 
corruption.  "  I  may  forgive  this,"  Webster  slowly  said 
to  the  appalled  audience,  "  but  I  shall  not  forget  it ; " 
such  "  abominable  violations  of  the  truth  of  history  " 
filled  his  bosom  with  "  burning  scorn."  This  was  a 
highly  imaginative  allusion  to  Van  Buren's  statement 
that  the  national  bank  had  been  originally  devised  by 
the  friends  of  privileged  orders.  Nor  need  the  South, 
even  Webster  intimated,  have  any  fear  of  the  Whigs 
about  slavery.  Could  the  South  believe  that  Harrison 
would  "  lay  ruthless  hands  on  the  institutions  among 
which  he  was  born  and  educated "  ?  No  indeed,  for 
Washington  and  Hancock,  Virginia  and  Massachusetts, 
had  joined  their  thoughts,  their  hopes,  their  feelings. 
"  How  many  bones  of  northern  men,"  he  asked  with 
majestic  pathos,  "  lie  at  Yorktown  ?  "  Senator  Rives, 
now  one  of  the  Conservatives,  said  that  Van  Buren  was 
indeed  "  mild,  smooth,  affable,  smiling  ;  "  but  humility 
was  "•  young  and  old  ambition's  ladder."  The  militia 
project  meant  military  usurpation.  Look  at  Cromwell, 
he  said ;  look  at  Bonaparte.  Were  their  usurpations  not 
in  the  name  of  the  people  ?  Preston  of  South  Carolina 
said  that  Van  Buren  had  advocated  diminished  wa^es  to 

O 

others  ;  now  he  should  himself  receive  diminished  wages. 
Harrison  was,  he  said,  "  a  southern  man  with  southern 
principles."  As  for  Van  Buren,  this  "  northern  man 
with  southern  principles,"  did  he  not  come  "from  be 
yond  the  Hudson,"  had  he  not  been  "a friend  of  Rufus 
King,  a  Missouri  restrictionist,  a  friend  and  advocate  of 
free  negro  suffrage  "  ?  Clay  said  that  it  was  no  time  "  to 
argue  ;  "  a  rule  his  party  for  the  moment  well  observed 


330  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

The  nation  had  already  pronounced  upon  the  ravages 
Van  Buren  had  brought  upon  the  land,  the  general  and 
widespread  ruin,  the  broken  hopes.  With  the  mere  fact 
of  Harrison's  election,  "without  reference  to  the  meas 
ures  of  his  administration,"  he  told  the  Virginians  at 
Hanover,  "  confidence  will  immediately  revive,  credit  be 
restored,  active  business  will  return,  prices  of  products 
will  rise  ;  and  the  people  will  feel  and  know  that,  instead 
of  their  servants  being  occupied  in  devising  measures 
for  their  ruin  and  destruction,  they  will  be  assiduously 
employed  in  promoting  their  welfare  and  prosperity." 

All  this  was  far  more  glorious  than  the  brutally  true 
advice  of  the  old  man  with  a  broad-axe  on  his  shoulders, 
whom  the  Democrats  quoted.  When  asked  what  was  to 
become  of  everybody  in  the  heavy  distress  of  the  panic, 
he  answered,  "  Damn  the  panic  !  If  you  would  all  work 
as  I  do,  you  would  have  no  panic."  The  people  no 
longer  cared  about  "  the  interested  few  who  desire  to  en 
rich  themselves  by  the  use  of  public  money."  If,  as  the 
Democrats  said,  the  interested  few  had  been  thwarted, 
an  almost  universal  poverty  had  for  some  reason  or  other 
come  with  their  defeat.  Perhaps  the  reflecting  citizen 
thought  that  he  might  become,  if  he  were  not  already, 
one  of  the  "  interested  few."  Nor  was  the  demagogy 
all  on  the  side  of  the  Whigs,  although  they  enjoyed 
the  more  popular  quality  of  the  quadrennial  product. 
Van  Buren  himself,  in  the  futile  fashion  of  aging  par 
ties  which  suppose  that  their  ancient  victories  still  stir 
the  popular  heart,  recalled  "the  reign  of  terror"  of 
the  elder  Adams,  and  how  the  "  Samson  of  Democracy 
bursts  the  cords  which  were  already  bound  around  its 
limbs,"  how  "  a  web  more  artfully  contrived,  composed 
of  a  high  protective  tariff,  a  system  of  internal  improve- 


ELECTION    OF  1840.  831 

ments,  and  a  national  bank,  was  then  twined  around  the 
sleeping  giant  "  until  he  was  "  roused  by  the  warning 
voice  of  the  honest  and  intrepid  Jackson."     Harrison's 
own  numerous  speeches  were  awkward  and    indefinite 
enough  ;  but  still  they  showed  an  honest  and  sincere  man, 
and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  day  they  did  him  no  harm. 
The  revolts  against  the  severe  party  discipline  of  the 
Democracy,  aided  by  the  popular  distress,  were  serious. 
Calhoun,  indeed,  had  returned;  but  all  his  supporters 
did  not  return  with  him.     The  southern  defection  headed 
by  White  in  1836  was  still  most  formidable,  and  was 
now   reenforced    by  the    Conservative   secession   north 
and  south.     Even  Major  Eaton  forgot  Van  Buren's  gal 
lantry  ten  years  before,  and  joined  the  enemy.      The 
talk  of  "  spoils  "  was  amply  justified  ;  but  the  abuses  of 
patronage  had  not  prevented  Jackson's  popularity,  and 
under  Van  Buren  they  were  far  less  serious.     This  cry 
did  not  yet  touch  the  American  people.     The  most  seri 
ous  danger  of  "  spoils  "  still  lay  in  the  future.     Patron 
age  abuses  had  injured  the  efficiency  of  the  public  ser 
vice,  but  they  had  not  yet  begun  to  defeat  the  popular 
will.     Jackson  came  resolutely  to  Van  Buren's  aid  in 
the  fashionable  letter-writing.     "  The  Rives  Conserva 
tives,  the  Abolitionists  and  Federalists  "  had  combined, 
the  ex-president  vivaciously  said,  to  obtain  power  "  by 
falsehood    and    slander    of    the  basest   kind  ; "  but  the 
"  virtue  of  the  people,"  he  declared  in  what  from  other 
lips  would  have  seemed  cant,  would  defeat  "  the  money 
power."     Van  Buren's  firmness  and  ability  entitled  him, 
he  thought,  to  a  rank  not  inferior  to  Jefferson  or  Madi 
son,  while  he  rather  unhandsomely  added  that  he  had 
never  admired  Harrison  as  a  military  man. 

The  Whig  campaign  was  highly  picturesque.    Meetings 
were  measured  by  "  acres  of  men."     They  gathered  on 


332  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

the  field  of  Tippecanoe.  Revolutionary  soldiers  marched 
in  venerable  processions.  Wives  and  daughters  came 
with  their  husbands  and  fathers.  There  were  the 
barrel  of  cider,  the  coon-skins,  and  the  log  cabin  with 
the  live  raccoon  running  over  it  and  the  latch-string 
hung  out ;  for  Harrison  had  told  his  soldiers  when  he 
left  them,  that  never  should  his  door  be  shut,  "  or  the 
string  of  the  latch  pulled  in."  Van  Buren  meantime, 
with  an  aristocratic  sneer  upon  his  face,  was  seated  in  an 
English  carriage,  after  feeding  himself  from  the  famous 
gold  spoons  bought  for  the  White  House.  Harrison 
was  a  hunter  who  had  caught  a  fox  before  and  would 
again  ;  one  of  the  county  processions  from  Pennsylva 
nia  boasted,  "  Old  Mother  Cumberland  —  she  '11  bag 
the  fox."  Illinois  would  "teach  the  palace  slaves  to 
respect  the  log  cabin."  "Down  with  the  wages,  say  the 
administration."  "  Matty's  policy,  fifty  cents  a  day  and 
French  soup  ;  our  policy,  two  dollars  a  day  and  roast 
beef."  Newspapers  were  full  of  advertisements  like 
this :  "  The  subscriber  will  pay  $5  a  hundred  for  pork 
if  Harrison  is  elected,  and  $2.50  if  Van  Buren  is." 

But  the  songs  were  most  interesting.  The  ball,  which 
Benton  had  said  in  his  last  speech  on  the  expunging  res 
olution  that  he  "  solitary  and  alone  "  had  put  in  motion, 
was  a  mine  of  similes.  They  sang : 

"  With  heart  and  soul 
This  ball  we  roll." 

"  As  rolls  the  ball, 
Van's  reign  does  fall, 
And  he  may  look 
To  Kinderhook." 

"  The  gathering  ball  is  rolling  still, 
And  still  gathering  as  it  rolls." 


ELECTION  OF  1840.  333 

Harrison's  battle  with  the  Indians  gave  the  effective 
cry  of  "  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too."     And  so  they  sang : 

"Farewell,  dear  Van, 
You  're  not  our  man  ; 
To  guard  the  ship, 
We  '11  try  old  Tip." 

'With  Tip  and  Tyler 
We'll  burst  Van's  biler." 

Old  Tip  he  wears  a  homespun  suit, 
He  has  no  ruffled  shirt —  wirt  — wirt ; 
But  Mat  he  has  the  golden  plate, 
And  he  's  a  little  squirt  —  wirt  —  wirt." 

When  the  election  returns  began  to  come  from  the 
August  and  September  states,  the  joyful  excitement 
passed  all  bounds.  Then  the  new  Whigs  found  a  new 
Lilliburlero.  To  the  tune  of  the  "  Little  Pig's  Tail "  they 
sang : 

"What  has  caused  this  great  commotion,  motion,  motion, 
Our  country  through  ? 
It  is  the  ball  a-rolling  on, 
For  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too  ! 

"  And  with  them  we  '11  beat  little  Van,  Van  ; 

Van  is  a  used-up  man. 
Oh,  have  you  heard  the  news  from  Maine,  Maine,  Maine, 

All  honest  and  true  ? 
One  thousand  for  Kent  and  seven  thousand  gain 

For  Tippecanoe,"  etc. 

And  then  Joe  Hoxie  would  close  the  meetings  by  sing 
ing  "  Up  Salt  River." 

The  result  was  pretty  plain  before  November.  New 
Hampshire,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  and  Virginia 
voted  for  state  officers  in  the  spring.  All  had  voted  for 
Van  Buren  in  1836  ;  all  now  gave  Whig  majorities, 


334  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

except  New  Hampshire,  where  the  Democratic  majority 
was  greatly  reduced.  In  August  North  Carolina  was 
added  to  the  Whig  column,  though  in  Missouri  and  Il 
linois  there  was  little  change.  But  when  in  September 
Maine,  which  had  given  Van  Buren  nearly  eight  thou 
sand  majority,  and  had  since  remained  steadfast,  "  went 
hell-bent  for  Governor  Kent  "  and  gave  a  slight  Whig 
majority,  the  administration's  doom  was  sealed. 

Harrison  received  234  electoral  votes,  and  Van  Buren 
60.  New  York  gave  Harrison  13,300  votes  more  than 
Van  Buren;  but  a  large  part  of  this  plurality,  per 
haps  all,  came  from  the  counties  on  the  northern  and 
western  borders.  Only  one  northern  state,  Illinois, 
voted  for  Van  Buren.  Of  the  slave  states,  five,  Vir 
ginia,  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  Missouri,  and  Arkansas, 
were  for  Van  Buren ;  the  other  eight  for  Harrison. 
There  was  a  popular  majority  in  the  slave  states  of 
about  55,000  against  Van  Buren  in  a  total  vote  of  about 
695,000,  and  in  the  free  states,  of  about  90,000  in  a  to 
tal  vote  of  about  1,700,000,  still  showing,  therefore,  his 
greater  popular  strength  in  the  free  states.  The  in 
crease  in  the  popular  vote  was  the  most  extraordinary 
the  country  has  ever  known,  proving  the  depth  and 
universality  of  the  feeling.  This  vote  had  been  about 
1,500,000  in  1836  ;  it  reached  about  2,400,000  in  1840, 
an  increase  of  900,000,  while  from  1840  to  the  Clay 
canvass  of  1844  it  increased  only  300,000.  Van  Bu 
ren,  as  a  defeated  candidate  in  1840,  received  about 
350,000  votes  more  than  elected  him  in  1836 ;  and  the 
growth  of  population  in  the  four  years  was  probably 
less,  not  greater,  than  usual.  There  were  cries  of 
'<  fraud  and  corruption  "  because  of  this  enormously 
increased  vote,  cries  which  Benton  long  afterwards  se- 


DEFEAT. 


335 


riously  heeded  ;  but  there  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  to 
treat  them  otherwise  than  as  one  of  the  many  expres 
sions  of  Democratic  anguish. 

Van  Buren  received  the  seemingly  crushing  defeat 
with  dignity  and  composure.  While  the  cries  of  "  Van, 
Van,  he  's  a  used-up  man,"  were  coming  with  some  of 
the  sting  of  truth  through  the  White  House  windows, 
he  prepared  the  final  message  with  which  he  met  Con 
gress  in  December,  1840.  The  year,  he  said,  had  been 
one  of  "  health,  plenty,  and  peace."  Again  he  declared 
the  dangers  of  a  national  debt,  and  the  equal  dangers  of 
too  much  money  in  the  treasury ;  for  "  practical  econ 
omy  in  the  management  of  public  affairs,"  he  said,  "  can 
have  no  adverse  influence  to  contend  with  more  power 
ful  than  a  large  surplus  revenue."  Again  he  attacked 
the  national  bank  scheme.  During  four  years  of  the 
greatest  pecuniary  embarrassments  ever  known  in  time 
of  peace,  with  a  decreasing  public  revenue,  with  a  for 
midable  opposition,  his  administration  had  been  able 
punctually  to  meet  every  obligation  without  a  bank, 
without  a  permanent  national  debt,  and  without  incurring 
any  liability  which  the  ordinary  resources  of  the  govern 
ment  would  not  speedily  discharge.  If  the  public  ser 
vice  had  been  thus  independently  sustained  without 
either  of  these  fruitful  sources  of  discord,  had  we  not  a 
right  to  expect  that  this  policy  would  "  receive  the  final 
sanction  of  a  people  whose  unbiased  and  fairly  elicited 
judgment  upon  public  affairs  is  never  ultimately  wrong  "  ? 
Again  with  a  clear  emphasis  he  declared  against  any 
attempt  of  the  government  to  repair  private  losses  sus 
tained  in  private  business,  either  by  direct  appropria 
tions  or  by  legislation  designed  to  secure  exclusive 
privileges  to  individuals  or  classes.  In  the  very  last 


336  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

words  of  this,  his  last  message,  he  gave  an  account  of 
his  efforts  to  suppress  the  slave  trade,  and  to  prevent 
"  the  prostitution  of  the  American  flag  to  this  inhuman 
purpose,"  asking  Congress,  by  a  prohibition  of  the  Amer 
ican  trade  which  took  supplies  to  the  slave  factories  on 
the  African  coast,  to  break  up  "  those  dens  of  iniquity." 

The  short  session  of  Congress  was  hardly  more  than 
a  jubilee  of  the  Whigs,  happily  ignorant  of  the  com 
plete  chagrin  and  frustration  of  their  hopes  which  a  few 
months  would  bring.  Some  new  bank  suspensions  oc 
curred  in  Philadelphia,  and  among  banks  closely  con 
nected  with  that  city.  The  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
after  a  resumption  for  twenty  days,  succumbed  amid  its 
own  loud  protestations  of  solvency,  its  final  disgrace 
and  ruin  being,  however,  deferred  a  little  longer. 

Van  Buren's  cabinet  was  somewhat  changed  before 
lie  left  office.  In  1838  his  old  friend  and  ally,  and  one 
of  the  chief  champions  of  his  policy,  Benjamin  F.  But 
ler,  resigned  the  office  of  attorney-general,  but  without 
any  break  political  or  personal,  as  was  seen  in  his  fine 
and  arduous  labors  in  the  canvass  of  1840  and  in  the 
Democratic  convention  of  1844.  Felix  Grundy  of  Ten 
nessee  then  held  the  place  until  late  in  1839,  when  he 
resigned.  Van  Buren  offered  it,  though  without  much 
heartiness,  to  James  Buchanan,  who  preferred,  however, 
to  retain  his  seat  in  the  senate  ;  and  Henry  D.  Gilpin, 
another  Pennsylvariian,  was  appointed.  Amos  Kendall's 
enormous  industry  and  singular  equipment  of  doctri 
naire  convictions,  narrow  prejudices,  executive  ability, 
and  practical  political  skill  and  craft,  were  lost  to  the 
administration  through  the  failure  of  his  health  in  the 
midst  of  the  campaign  of  1840.  In  an  address  to  the 
public  he  gave  a  curious  proof  that  for  him  work  was 


DEFEAT.  337 

more  wearing  in  public  than  in  private  service.  He  stated 
that  as  he  was  poor  he  should  resort  to  private  employ 
ment  suitable  to  his  health  ;  and  that  he  proposed,  there 
fore,  during  the  canvass  to  write  for  the  Globe  in  defense 
of  the  president,  in  whose  integrity,  principles,  and  firm 
ness  his  confidence,  he  said,  had  increased.  In  1838, 
when  his  health  had  threatened  to  be  unequal  to  his 
work,  Van  Buren  had  offered  him  the  mission  to  Spain, 
if  it  should  become  vacant.  John  M.  Niles,  formerly  a 
Democratic  senator  from  Connecticut,  took  Kendall's 
place  in  the  post-office. 

Van  Buren  welcomed  Harrison  to  the  White  House, 
and  before  the  inauguration  entertained  him  there  as  a 
guest,  with  the  easy  and  dignified  courtesy  so  natural  to 
him,  and  in  marked  contrast  to  the  absence  of  social 
amenities  on  either  side  at  the  great  change  twelve  years 
before.     Under  Van  Buren  indeed  the  executive  man 
sion  was  administered  with  elevated  grace.     There  was 
about  it,  while  he  was  master  there,  the  unostentatious 
elegance  suited  to  the  dwelling  of  the  chief  magistrate 
of  the  great  republic.     There  were  many  flings  at  him 
for  his   great  economy,  and  what  was  called  his  par 
simony ;    but  he  was  accused  as  well  of  undemocratic 
luxury.     The  talk  seemed  never  to   end  over  the  gold 
spoons.     The  contradictory  charges  point  out  the  truth. 
Van    Buren  was  an  eminently  prudent  man.     He  did 
not  indulge  in  the  careless  and  useless  waste  which  im 
poverished  Jefferson  and    Jackson.       By  sensible    and 
honorable  economy  he  is  said  to  have  saved  one  half  of 
the  salary  of  $25,000  a  year  then  paid  to  the  president.1 

i  It  should  be  remembered  that  several  great  expenses  of  the 
White  House  were  then  and  are  now  met  by  special  and  additional 
appropriations. 


338  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Returning  to  private  life,  he  was  spared  the  humiliation 
of  pecuniary  trouble,  which  had  distressed  three  at  least 
of  his  predecessors.  But  through  an  exquisite  sense  of 
propriety,  he  had  not  failed  to  order  the  White  House 
with  fitting  decorum  and  a  modest  state.  His  son  Abra 
ham  Van  Buren  was  his  private  secretary  ;  and  after 
the  latter's  marriage,  in  November,  1838,  to  Miss  Single 
ton  of  South  Carolina,  a  niece  of  Andrew  Stevenson, 
and  a  relation  of  Mrs.  Madison,  he  and  his  wife  formed 
the  presidential  family.  In  1841  they  accompanied  the 
ex-president  to  his  retirement  at  Lindenwald. 

Under  Andrew  Jackson  the  social  air  of  the  White 
House  had  suffered  from  his  ill-health  and  the  bitter 
ness  of  his  partisanship ;  and  in  this  respect  the  change 
to  his  successor  was  most  pleasing.  Van  Buren  used  an 
agreeable  tact  with  even  his  strongest  opponents  ;  and 
about  his  levees  and  receptions  there  were  a  charm  and 
a  grace  by  no  means  usual  in  the  dwellings  of  American 
public  men.  He  had,  we  are  told  in  the  Recollections 
of  Sargent,  a  political  adversary  of  his,  "  the  high  art  of 
blending  dignity  with  ease  and  gravity."  He  introduced 
the  custom  of  dining  with  the  heads  of  departments  and 
foreign  ministers,  although  with  that  exception  he  ob 
served  the  etiquette  of  never  being  the  guest  of  others  at 
Washington.  Judge  Story  mentions  the  "  splendid  din 
ner  "  given  by  the  president  to  the  judges  in  January, 
1839. 

John  Quincy  Adams's  diary  bears  unintended  testi 
mony  to  Van  Buren's  admirable  personal  bearing  in 
office.  From  the  time  he  reached  Washington  as  secre 
tary  of  state,  he  had  treated  Adams  in  his  defeat  with 
marked  distinction  and  deference,  which  Adams,  as  he 
records,  accepted  in  his  own  house,  in  the  White  House, 


DEFEAT,  339 

and  elsewhere.  At  a  social  party  the  president,  he  said, 
"  was,  as  usual,  courteous  to  all  and  particularly  to  me." 
Van  Buren  had  therefore  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
there  was  between  himself  and  Adams  a  not  unfriendly 
personal  esteem.  But  Adams,  in  his  churlish,  bitter 
temper,  apparently  found  in  these  wise  and  generous 
civilities  only  evidence  of  a  mean  spirit.  After  one  visit 
at  the  White  House  during  the  height  of  the  crisis  of 
1837,  he  recorded  that  he  found  Van  Buren  looking, 
not  wretched,  as  he  had  been  told,  but  composed  and 
tranquil.  Returning  home  from  this  observation  of  the 
president's  "  calmness,  his  gentleness  of  manner,  his 
easy  and  conciliatory  temper,"  this  often  unmannerly 
pen  described  besides  "his  obsequiousness,  his  syco 
phancy,  his  profound  dissimulation  and  duplicity,  .  .  . 
his  fawning  civility."  In  a  passage  jphich  was  remark 
able  in  that  time  of  political  bitterness  so  largely  per 
sonal,  Clay  said,  in  his  parliamentary  duel  with  Cal- 
houn,  after  the  latter  rejoined  the  Democratic  party, 
that  he  remembered  Calhoun  attributing  to  the  presi 
dent  the  qualities  of  "  the  most  crafty,  most  skulking, 
and  the  meanest  of  the  quadruped  tribe."  Saying  that 
he  had  not  shared  Calhoun's  opinion,  he  then  added  of 
Van  Buren  :  — 

"  I  have  always  found  him  in  his  manner  and  deport 
ment,  civil,  courteous,  and  gentlemanly;  and  he  dis 
penses  in  the  noble  mansion  which  he  now  occupies,  one 
worthy  the  residence  of  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  great 
people,  a  generous  and  liberal  hospitality.  An  acquaint 
ance  with  him  of  more  than  twenty  years'  duration  has 
inspired  me  with  a  respect  for  the  man,  although  I  regret 
to  be  compelled  to  say,  I  detest  the  magistrate." 


CHAPTER  XL 

EX-PRESIDENT. SLAVERY. TEXAS    ANNEXATION. 

DEFEAT    BY   THE    SOUTH.  FREE-SOIL    CAMPAIGN. 

LAST   YEARS. 

VAN  BUREN  loitered  at  Washington  a  few  days  after 
his  presidency  was  over,  and  on  his  way  home  stopped 
at  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York.  At  New 
York  he  was  finely  welcomed.  Amid  great  crowds  he 
was  taken  to  the  City  Hall  in  a  procession  headed  by 
Captain  Brown's  torps  of  lancers  and  a  body  of  armed 
firemen.  He  reached  Kinderhook  on  May  15,  1841, 
there  to  make  his  home  until  his  death.  He  had,  after 
the  seemly  and  pleasing  fashion  of  many  men  in  Ameri 
can  public  life,  lately  purchased  near  this  village  among 
the  hills  of  Columbia  county,  the  residence  of  William 
P.  Van  Ness,  where  Irving  had  thirty  years  before  lived 
in  seclusion  after  the  death  of  his  betrothed,  and  had  put 
the  last  touches  to  his  Knickerbocker.  It  was  an  old 
estate,  whose  lands  had  been  rented  for  twenty  years 
and  under  cultivation  for  a  hundred  and  sixty,  and  from 
which  Van  Buren  now  managed  to  secure  a  profit.  To 
this  seat  Ii3  gave  the  name  of  Lindenwald,  a  name  which 
in  secret  he  probably  hoped  the  American  people  would 
come  to  group  with  Monticello,  Montpellier,  and  the 
Hermitage.  But  this  could  not  be.  Van  Buren  had 
served  but  half  the  presidential  term  of  honor.  He  was 
not  a  sage,  but  still  a  candidate  for  the  presidency. 


EX-PRESIDENT.  341 

Before  the  electoral  votes  were  counted  in  1841,  Benton 
declared  for  his  renomination  in  1844  ;  and  until  the 
latter  year  he  again  held  the  interesting  and  powerful 
but  critical  place  of  the  probable  candidate  of  his  party 
for  the  presidency.  He  remained  easily  the  chief  figure 
in  the  Democratic  ranks.  His  defeat  had  not  taken 
from  him  that  honor  which  is  the  property  of  the  states 
man  standing  for  a  cause  whose  righteousness  and  prom 
ise  belong  to  the  assured  future.  His  defeat  signified  no 
personal,  no  political  fault.  It  had  come  to  him  from  a 
widespread  convulsion  for  which,  perhaps  less  than  any 
great  American  of  his  time,  he  was  responsible.  His 
party  could  not  abandon  its  battle  for  a  limited  and 
non-paternal  government  and  against  the  use  of  public 
moneys  by  private  persons.  It  could  not  therefore  aban 
don  him  ;  for  more  than  any  other  man  who  had  not 
now  finally  retired  he  represented  these  causes  in  his 
own  person.  But  his  easy  composure  of  manner  did  not 
altogether  hide  that  eating  and  restless  anxiety  which  so 
often  attends  this  supreme  ambition  of  the  American. 

Two  days  after  leaving  the  White  House,  Van  Buren 
said,  in  reply  to  complimentary  resolutions  of  the  legis 
lature  of  Missouri,  that  he  did  not  utterly  lament  the 
bitter  attacks  upon  him  ;  for  experience  had  taught  him 
that  few  political  men  were  praised  by  their  foes  until 
they  were  about  abandoning  their  friends.  With  a 
pleasing  frankness  he  admitted  that  to  be  worthy  of  the 
presidency  and  to  reach  it  had  been  the  object  of  his 
"most  earnest  desire  ;  "  but  he  said  that  the  selection  of 
the  next  Democratic  candidate  must  be  decided  by  its 
probable  effect  upon  the  principles  for  which  they  had 
just  fought,  and  not  upon  any  supposition  that  he  had 
been  wounded  or  embittered  by  his  defeat  in  their 


342  MARTIN  VAN  BUR  EN. 

defense.  His  description  of  a  candidate  meant  himself, 
however,  and  rightly  enough.  In  November,  1841,  he 
wrote  of  the  "  apparent  success  of  last  year's  buffoonery  ;" 
and  intimated  that,  though  he  would  take  no  step  to  be 
a  candidate,  it  was  not  true  that  he  had  said  he  should 
decline  a  nomination. 

Early  in  1842,  the  ex -president  made  a  trip  through 
the  South,  in  company  with  James  K.  Paulding,  visiting 
on  his  return  Clay  at  Ashland,  and  Jackson  at  the  Her 
mitage.  He  was  one  of  the  very  few  men  on  personally 
friendly  terms  with  both  those  long-time  enemies.  At 
Ashland,  doubtless,  Texas  was  talked  over,  even  if  a 
bargain  were  not  made,  as  has  been  fancied,  that  Clay 
and  Van  Buren  should  remove  the  troublesome  question 
from  politics.  In  a  fashion  very  different  from  that  of 
modern  candidates,  he  now  wrote,  from  time  to  time, 
able,  long,  and  explicit,  but  somewhat  tedious  letters  on 
political  questions.  In  one  of  them  he  touched  protec 
tion  more  clearly  than  ever  before.  He  favored,  he 
said  in  February,  1843,  a  tariff  for  revenue  only  ;  the 
"  incidental  protection "  which  that  must  give  many 
American  manufacturers  was  all  the  protection  which 
should  be  permitted  ;  the  mechanics  and  laborers  had 
been  the  chief  sufferers  from  a  "high  protective  tariff." 
He  was  at  last  and  definitely  "  a  low  tariff  man."  He 
declared  that  he  should  support  the  Democratic  candi 
date  of  1844 ;  for  he  believed  it  to  be  impossible  that  a 
selection  from  that  source  should  not  accord  with  his 
views.  He  did  not  perhaps  realize  to  how  extreme  a 
test  his  sincerity  would  be  put.  He  added  words  which 
four  years  later  read  strangely  enough.  "  My  name  and 
pretensions,"  he  said,  "  however  subordinate  in  impor 
tance,  shall  never  be  at  the  disposal  of  any  person  what- 


EX-PRESIDENT.  343 

ever,  for  the  purpose  of  creating  distractions  or  divisions 
in  the  Democratic  party." 

The  party  was  indeed  known  as  the  "  Van  Buren 
party  "  until  1844,  so  nearly  universal  was  the  supposi 
tion  that  he  was  to  be  renominated,  and  so  plainly  was 
he  its  leader.  The  disasters  which  had  now  overtaken 
the  Whigs  made  his  return  to  power  seem  probable 
enough.  The  utterly  incongruous  elements  held  together 
during  the  sharp  discontent  and  wonderful  but  inarticu 
late  enthusiasm  of  1840  had  quickly  fallen  apart.  While 
on  his  way  to  Kinderhook  Van  Buren  was  the  chief  figure 
in  the  obsequies  of  Harrison  at  New  York.  This  honest 
man,  of  whom  John  Quincy  Adams  said,  with  his  usual 
savage  exaggeration,  that  his  dull  sayings  were  repeated 
for  wit  and  his  grave  inanity  passed  off  for  wisdom,  had 
already  quarreled  with  the  splendid  leader  whose  place 
he  was  too  conscious  of  usurping.  Tyler's  accession  was 
the  first,  but  not  the  last  warning,  which  American  politi 
cians  have  had  of  the  danger  of  securing  the  presidency 
by  an  award  of  the  second  place  to  a  known  opponent  of 
the  principles  whose  success  they  seek.  Tyler  had  not 
before  his  nomination  concealed  his  narrow  and  Demo 
cratic  views  of  government.  The  Whigs  had  ostenta 
tiously  refused  to  declare  any  principles  when  they 
nominated  him.  In  technical  conscientiousness  he 
marched  with  a  step  by  no  means  cowardly  to  unhonored 
political  isolation,  as  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  marched 
another  vice-president  nominated  by  a  party  in  whose 
ranks  he  too  was  a  new  recruit.  Upon  Tyler's  veto  of 
the  bill  for  a  national  bank,  an  outcry  of  agony  went  up 
from  the  Whigs ;  the  whole  cabinet,  except  Webster, 
resigned  ;  a  new  cabinet  was  formed,  partly  from  the 
Conservatives ;  and  by  1844,  Tyler  was  a  forlorn  candi- 


344  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

date  for  the  Democratic  nomination,  which  he  claimed 
for  his  support  of  the  annexation  of  Texas. 

Upon  this  first  of  the  great  pro-slavery  movements 
Van  Buren  was  defeated  for  the  Democratic  nomination 
in  1844,  although  it  seemed  assured  to  him  by  every 
consideration  of  party  loyalty,  obligation,  and  wise  fore 
sight.  The  relations  of  government  to  private  business 
ceased  to  be  the  dominant  political  question  a  few 
months  and  only  a  few  months  too  soon  to  enable  Van 
Buren  to  complete  his  eight  years.  Slavery  arose  in 
place  of  economics. 

No  mistake  is  more  common  in  the  review  of  Ameri 
can  history  than  to  suppose  that  slavery  was  an  active 
or  definite  force  in  organized  American  politics  after 
the  Missouri  Compromise  and  before  the  struggle  for 
the  annexation  of  Texas  under  Tyler's  administration. 
The  appeals  of  the  abolitionists  to  the  simpler  and 
deeper  feelings  of  humanity  were  indeed  at  work  before 
1835  ;  and  from  that  year  on  they  were  profoundly 
stirring  the  American  conscience  and  storing  up  tremen 
dous  moral  energy.  But  slavery  was  not  in  partisan 
politics.  In  1836  and  1840  there  was  upon  slavery  no 
real  difference  between  the  utterances  of  the  candidates 
and  other  leaders,  Whig  and  Democratic,  whether  north 
or  south.  Van  Buren  was  supported  by  many  aboli 
tionists  ;  the  profoundest  distrust  of  him  was  at  the 
South.  Upon  no  question  touching  slavery  with  which 
the  president  could  have  concern,  did  his  opinions  or 
his  utterances  differ  from  those  of  John  Quincy  Adams. 
Clay  said  in  November,  1838,  that  the  abolitionists 
denounced  him  as  a  slaveholder  and  the  slaveholders 
denounced  him  as  an  abolitionist,  while  both  united  on 
Van  Buren.  The  charge  of  truckling  to  the  South, 


DEFEAT  BY  THE  SOUTH.  345 

traditionally  made  against  Van  Buren,  is  justified  by  no 
utterance  or  act  different  from  those  made  by  all 
American  public  men  of  distinction  at  the  time,  except 
perhaps  in  two  instances,  —  his  vote  as  vice-president 
for  Kendall's  bill  against  sending  inflammatory  abolition 
circulars  through  the  post-office  to  states  which  pro 
hibited  their  circulation,  and  his  approval  of  the  rules 
in  the  senate  and  house  for  tabling  or  refusing  abolition 
petitions  without  reading  them.  But  neither  of  these, 
as  has  been  shown,  was  a  decisive  test.  In  the  first  case 
he  met  a  political  trick  ;  and  for  his  vote  there  was 
justly  much  to  be  said  on  the  reason  of  the  thing,  apart 
from  southern  wishes.  As  late  as  1848,  Webster,  in 
criticising  Van  Buren's  inconsistency,  would  say  no 
more  of  the  law  than  that  it  was  one  u  of  very  doubtful 
propriety  ;  "  and  declared  that  he  himself  should  agree 
to  legislation  by  Congress  to  protect  the  South  "  from 
incitements  to  insurrection."  In  the  second  case  Van 
Buren's  position  in  public  life  restrained  him  from 
acquiescing  in  an  agitation  in  Congress  for  measures 
which,  with  all  responsible  public  men,  Adams  included, 
he  believed  Congress  ought  not  to  pass. 

The  Democratic  convention  was  to  meet  in  May, 
1844.  The  delegates  had  been  very  generally  in 
structed  for  Van  Buren;  and  two  months  before  it 
assembled  his  nomination  seemed  beyond  doubt.  But 
the  slave  states  were  now  fired  with  a  barbarous  enthu 
siasm  to  extend  slavery  by  annexing  T^xas.  To  this 
Van  Buren  was  supposed  to  be  hostile.  His  southern 
opponents,  in  February,  1843,  skillfully  procured  from 
Jackson,  innocent  of  the  plan,  a  strong  letter  in  favor  of 
the  annexation,  to  be  used,  it  was  said,  just  before  the 
convention,  "  to  blow  Van  out  of  water."  The  letter 


346  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

was  first  published  in  March,  1844.  Van  Buren  was  at 
once  put  to  a  crucial  test.  His  administration  had  been 
adverse  to  annexation  ;  his  opinion  was  still  adverse. 
But  a  large,  and  not  improbably  a  controlling  section  of 
his  party,  aided  by  Jackson's  wonderful  prestige,  deemed 
it  the  most  important  of  political  causes.  Van  Buren 
was,  according  to  the  plan,  explicitly  asked  by  a 
southern  delegate  to  state,  with  distinct  reference  to  the 
action  of  the  convention,  what  were  his  opinions. 

The  ex-president  deeply  desired  the  nomination ;  and 
the  nomination  seemed  conditioned  upon  his  surrender. 
It  was  at  least  assured  if  he  now  gave  no  offense  to  the 
South.  But  he  did  not  flinch.  He  resorted  to  no  safe 
generalizations.  His  views  upon  the  annexation  were, 
he  admitted,  different  from  those  of  many  friends, 
political  and  personal ;  but  in  1837  his  administration 
after  a  careful  consideration  had  decided  against 
annexation  of  the  state  whose  independence  had  lately 
been  recognized  by  the  United  States  ;  the  situation  had 
not  changed ;  immediate  annexation  would  place  a 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  those  who  looked  upon  Ameri 
cans  and  American  institutions  with  distrustful  and 
envious  eyes,  and  would  do  us  far  more  real  and  lasting 
injury  than  the  new  territory,  however  valuable,  could 
repair.  He  intimated  that  there  was  jobbery  in  some 
of  the  enthusiasm  for  the  annexation.  The  argument 
that  England  might  acquire  Texas  was  without  force ; 
when  England  sought  in  Texas  more  than  the  usual 
commercial  favors,  it  would  be  time  for  the  United 
States  to  interfere.  He  was  aware,  he  said,  of  the 
hazard  to  which  he  exposed  his  standing  with  his  south 
ern  fellow-citizens,  "  of  whom  it  was  aptly  and  appropri 
ately  said  by  one  of  their  own  number  that  *  they  are 


DEFEAT  BY  THE  SOUTH.         347 

the  children  of  the  sun  and  partake  of  its  warmth.'  " 
But  whether  we  stand  or  fall,  he  said,  it  is  always  true 
wisdom  as  well  as  true  morality  to  hold  fast  to  the 
truth.  If  to  nourish  enthusiasm  were  one  of  the  effects 
of  a  genial  climate,  it  seldom  failed  to  give  birth  to  a 
chivalrous  spirit.  To  preserve  our  national  escutcheon 
untarnished  had  always  been  the  unceasing  solicitude  of 
southern  statesmen.  The  only  tempering  he  gave  his 
refusal  was  to  say  that  if,  after  the  subject  had  been 
fully  discussed,  a  Congress  chosen  with  reference  to  the 
question  showed  the  popular  will  to  favor  it,  he  would 
yield.1  Van  Buren  thus  closed  his  letter :  "  Nor  can  I 
in  any  extremity  be  induced  to  cast  a  shade  over  the 
motives  of  my  past  life,  by  changes  or  concealments  of 
opinions  maturely  formed  upon  a  great  national  ques 
tion,  for  the  unworthy  purpose  of  increasing  my  chances 
for  political  promotion." 

1  I  must  again  complain  of  the  curious  though  unintended 
unfairness  of  Professor  Yon  Hoist  (Const.  Hist,  of  the  U.  S.  1828- 
1846,  Chicago,  1879,  p.  663).  He  treats  this  letter  with  great 
contempt.  He  assumes  indeed  that  Van  Buren' s  declaration  for 
annexation  would  have  given  him  the  nomination ;  and  admits 
that  Van  Buren  declared  himself  "  decidedly  opposed  to  annexa 
tion."  After  this  sufficient  proof  of  courage,  for  Van  Buren 
could  at  least  have  simply  promised  to  adopt  the  vote  of  Congress 
on  the  main  question,  it  was  not  very  sensible  to  declare  ' '  disgust 
ing  "  Van  Buren 's  efforts  "to  creep  through  the  thorny  hedge 
which  shut  him  off  from  the  party  nomination."  Professor  Von 
Hoist's  "disgust"  seems  particularly  directed  against  the  pas 
sage  here  annotated  where,  after  his  strong  argument  against 
annexation,  he  declared  that  he  would  not  be  influenced  by  sec 
tional  feeling,  and  would  obey  the  wishes  of  a  Congress  chosen 
with  reference  to  the  question.  Few,  I  think,  will  consider  this 
promise  with  reference  to  such  a  question,  either  cowardly  or 
"  disgusting,"  made,  as  it  was,  by  a  candidate  for  the  presidency 
of  a  democratic  Republic,  after  clearly  and  firmly  declaring  his 
own  views  in  advance  of  the  congressional  elections. 


348  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

To  a  presidential  candidate  the  eve  of  a  national  con 
vention  is  dim  with  the  self-deceiving  twilight  of  sophis 
try  ;  and  the  twilight  deepens  when  a  question  is  put 
upon  which  there  is  a  division  among  those  who  are,  or 
who  may  be,  his  supporters.  He  can  keep  silence,  he 
can  procure  the  questioning  friend  to  withdraw  the 
troublesome  inquiry  ;  he  can  ignore  the  question  from 
an  enemy  ;  he  can  affect  an  enigmatical  dignity.  Van 
Buren  did  neither  of  these.  His  Texas  letter  was  one 
of  the  finest  and  bravest  pieces  of  political  courage,  and 
deserves  from  Americans  a  long  admiration. 

The  danger  of  Van  Buren's  difference  with  Jackson 
it  was  sought  to  avert.  Butler  visited  Jackson  at  the 
Hermitage,  and  doubtless  showed  him  for  what  a  sinister 
end  he  had  been  used.  Jackson  did  not  withdraw  his 
approval  of  annexation  ;  but  publicly  declared  his  re 
gard  for  Van  Buren  to  be  so  great,  his  confidence  in  Van 
Buren's  love  of  country  to  be  so  strengthened  by  long 
intimacy,  that  no  difference  about  Texas  could  change 
his  opinions.  Van  Buren's  nomination  was  again  widely 
supposed  to  be  assured.  But  the  work  of  Calhoun  and 
Robert  J.  Walker  had  been  too  well  done.  The  con 
vention  met  at  Baltimore  on  May  27,  1844.  George 
Bancroft  headed  the  delegation  from  Massachusetts. 
Before  the  Rev.  Dr.  Johns  had  "  fervently  addressed  the 
Throne  of  Grace  "  or  the  Rev.  Mr.  McJilton  had  "  read 
a  scripture  lesson,"  the  real  contest  took  place  over  the 
adoption  of  the  rule  requiring  a  two-thirds  vote  for  a 
nomination.  For  it  was  through  this  rule  that  enough 
southern  members,  chosen  before  Van  Buren's  letter  as 
they  had  been,  were  to  escape  obedience  to  their  instruc 
tions  to  vote  for  him.  Robert  J.  Walker,  then  a  senator 
from  Mississippi,  a  man  of  interesting  history  and  large 


DEFEAT  BY    THE   SOUTH.  349 

ability,  led  the  southerners.  He  quoted  the  precedent 
of  1832,  when  Van  Buren  had  been  nominated  for  the 
vice-presidency  under  the  two-thirds  rule,  and  that  of 
1835,  when  he  had  been  nominated  for  the  presidency. 
These  nominations  had  led  to  victory.  In  1840  the 
rule  had  not  been  adopted.  Without  this  rule,  he  said 
amid  angry  excitement,  the  party  would  yield  to  those 
whose  motto  seemed  to  be  "rule  or  ruin."  Butler, 
Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  and  Marcus  Morton  led  the  north 
ern  ranks.  Butler  regretted  that  any  member  should 
condescend  to  the  allusion  to  1840.  That  year,  he  said, 
had  been  a  debauchery  of  the  nation's  reason  amid  log 
cabins,  hard  cider,  and  coon-skins  ;  and  in  an  ecstasy  of 
painful  excitement  at  the  recollection  and  amid  a  tre 
mendous  burst  of  applause  "  he  leaped  from  the  floor 
and  stamped  ...  as  if  treading  beneath  his  feet  the 
object  of  his  loathing."  The  true  Democratic  rule,  he 
continued,  required  the  minority  to  submit  to  the  ma 
jority.  Morton  said  that  under  the  majority  rule  Jeffer 
son  had  been  nominated ;  that  rule  had  governed  state, 
county,  and  township  conventions.  Butler  admitted 
that  under  the  rule  Van  Buren  would  not  be  nominated, 
although  a  majority  of  the  convention  was  known  to  be 
for  him.  In  1832  and  1835  the  two-thirds  rule  had  pre 
vailed  because  it  was  certainly  known  who  would  be 
nominated  ;  and  the  rule  operated  to  aid  not  to  defeat 
the  majority.  If  the  rule  were  adopted,  it  would  be  by  the 
votes  of  states  which  were  not  Democratic,  and  would 
bring  "  dismemberment  and  final  breaking  up  of  the 
party."  Walker  laughed  at  Butler's  "  tall  vaulting  " 
from  the  floor  ;  and,  refusing  to  shrink  from  the  Van 
Buren  issue,  he  protested  against  New  York  dictation, 
and  warningly  said  that,  if  Van  Bureai  were  nominated, 


350  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Clay  would  be  elected.  After  the  convention  had  re 
ceived  with  enthusiasm  a  floral  gift  from  a  Democratic 
lady  whom  the  president  declared  to  be  fairer  than  the 
flowers,  the  vote  was  taken.  The  two-thirds  rule  was 
adopted  by  148  to  118.  All  the  negatives  were  north 
erners,  except  14  from  Missouri,  Maryland,  and  North 
Carolina.  Fifty-eight  true  "  northern  men  with  southern 
principles  "  joined  ninety  southerners  in  the  affirmative. 
It  was  really  a  vote  on  Van  Buren,  —  or  rather  upon 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  —  or  rather  still  upon  the  ex 
tension  of  American  slave  territory.  It  was  the  first 
battle,  a  sort  of  Bull  Run,  in  the  last  and  great  political 
campaign  betvreen  the  interests  of  slavery  and  those  of 
freedom. 

On  the  first  ballot  for  the  candidate,  Van  Buren 
had  146  votes,  13  more  than  a  majority.  If  after  the 
vote  on  the  two-thirds  rule  anything  more  were  required 
to  show  that  some  of  these  votes  were  given  in  mere 
formal  obedience  to  instructions,  the  second  ballot 
brought  the  proof.  Van  Buren  then  sank  to  127,  less 
than  a  majority ;  and  on  the  seventh  ballot  to  99.  A 
motion  was  made  to  declare  him  the  nominee  as  the 
choice  of  a  majority  of  the  convention  ;  and  there  fol- 
lorwed  a  scene  of  fury,  the  president  bawling  for  order 
amid  savage  taunts  between  North  and  South,  and  bitter 
denunciations  of  the  treachery  of  some  of  those  who  had 
pledged  themselves  for  Van  Buren.  Samuel  Young  of 
New  York  declared  the  "  abominable  Texas  question  " 
to  be  the  fire-brand  thrown  among  them  by  the  "  mon 
grel  administration  at  Washington,"  whose  hero  was 
now  doubtless  fiddling  while  Rome  was  burning.  Nero 
seems  to  have  been  Calhoun,  though  between  the  god 
like  young  devil  of  antiquity  wreathed  with  sensual 


DEFEAT  BY  THE  SOUTH.  351 

frenzy  and  infamy,  and  the  solemn,  even  saturnine 
figure  of  the  great  modern  advocate  of  human  slavery 
the  likeness  seemed  rather  distant.  The  motion  was 
declared  out  of  order ;  and  the  name  of  James  K.  Polk 
was  presented  as  that  of  "  a  pure  whole-hogged  Demo 
crat."  On  the  eighth  ballot  he  had  44  votes.  Then 
followed  the  magnanimous  scene  of  "union  and  har 
mony  "  which  has  so  often,  after  a  conflict,  charmed  a 
political  body  into  unworthy  surrender.  The  great 
delegation  from  New  York  retired  during  the  ninth 
balloting ;  and  returned  to  a  convention  profoundly 
silent  but  thrilling  with  that  bastard  sense  of  coming 
glory  in  which  a  latelv  tumultuous  and  quarreling  body 
waits  the  solution  of  its  difficulties  already  known  to  be 
reached  but  not  yet  declared.  Butler  quoted  a  letter 
which  Van  Buren  had  given  him  authorizing  the  with 
drawal  of  his  name  if  it  were  necessary  for  harmony  ; 
he  eulogized  Polk  as  a  strict  constructionist,  and  closed 
by  reading  a  letter  from  Jackson  fervently  urging  Van 
Buren's  nomination.  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  said  that 
u  he  loved  this  convention  because  it  had  acted  so  like 
the  masses,"  and  cast  New  York's  35  votes  for  Polk. 
The  latter's  nomination  was  declared  with  the  utmost 
joy,  and  sent  to  Washington  over  Morse's  first  tele 
graph  line,  just  completed.  Silas  Wright  of  New  York, 
Van  Buren's  strong  friend  and  a  known  opponent  of 
annexation,  was,  in  the  fashion  since  followed,  nomi 
nated  for  the  vice-presidency,  to  soothe  the  feelings 
and  the  conscience  of  the  defeated.  Wright  peremp 
torily  telegraphed  his  refusal.  He  told  his  friends  that 
he  did  "  not  choose  to  ride  behind  on  the  black  pony." 
George  M.  Dallas  of  Pennsylvania  took  his  place. 

The  Democratic  party  now  threw  away  all  advantage 


352  MARTIN   VAN  BUREN. 

of  the  issue  made  by  the  undeserved  defeat  four  years 
before.  Thirty-six  years  later  it  repeated  the  blunder 
in  discarding  Van  Buren's  famous  neighbor  and  disciple. 
It  was  the  first  selection  by  the  party  of  a  man  distinctly 
of  the  second  or  of  even  a  lower  rank.  Polk  was  known 
to  have  ability  inferior  not  only  to  that  of  Van  Buren 
and  Calhoun,  but  to  Cass,  Buchanan,  Wright,  and  others. 
He  was  the  first  presidential  "  dark  horse,"  and  indeed 
hardly  that.  His  own  state  of  Tennessee  had,  by  reso 
lution,  presented  him  as  its  choice  for  vice-president 
with  Van  Buren  in  the  first  place.  He  had  been 
speaker  of  the  national  house,  and  later,  governor  of  his 
state ;  but  since  holding  these  places  had  been  twice  de 
feated  for  governor.  In  accepting  the  nomination  he 
declared,  with  an  apparent  fling  at  Van  Buren,  that,  if 
elected,  he  should  not  accept  a  renomination,  and  should 
thus  enable  the  party  in  1848  to  make  "  a  free  selec 
tion." 

The  nomination  aroused  disgust  enough.  "  Polk  ! 
Great  God,  what  a  nomination  !  "  Letcher,  the  Whig 
governor  of  Kentucky,  wrote  to  Buchanan.  But  the 
experiment  of  1840  with  the  Whigs  had  been  disastrous  ; 
the  people  had  swung  back  to  the  strict  doctrines  of 
the  Democracy.  Van  Buren  faithfully  kept  his  promise 
to  support  the  nomination  ;  under  his  urgency  Wright 
finally  accepted  the  nomination  for  governor  of  New 
York.  And  by  the  vote  of  New  York  Henry  Clay  was 
defeated  by  a  man  vastly  his  inferior.  Polk  had  5,000 
plurality  in  that  state  ;  but  Wright  had  10,000.  Had 
not  James  G.  Birney,  the  abolitionist  candidate  who 
polled  there  15,812  votes,  been  in  the  field,  not  even  Van 
Buren's  party  loyalty  would  have  prevented  Clay's  elec 
tion.  Van  Buren's  friends  saved  the  state ;  but  in 


SLAVERY  IN  POL/TICS.  353 

doing  so  voted  for  annexation.  In  April,  1844,  Clay 
had  written  a  letter  against  annexation.  As  it  appeared 
within  a  few  days  of  Van  Buren's  letter,  and  as  the  per 
sonal  relations  between  the  two  great  party  leaders  were 
most  friendly,  some  have  inferred  an  arrangement  be 
tween  them  to  take  the  question  out  of  politics.  This 
would  indeed  have  been  an  extraordinary  occurrence. 
One  might  well  wish  to  have  overheard  a  negotiation 
between  two  rivals  for  the  presidency  to  exclude,  a  great 
question  distasteful  to  both.  After  the  Democratic  con 
vention,  Tyler's  treaty  of  annexation  was  rejected  in  the 
senate  by  35  to  16,  six  Democrats  from  the  North, 
among  them  Wright  of  New  York  and  Benton  of  Mis 
souri,  voting  against  it.  During  the  campaign  Clay 
had  weakly  abandoned  even  the  mild  emphasis  of  his 
first  opposition,  and  by  flings  at  the  abolitionists  had 
openly  bid  for  the  pro-slavery  vote  ;  thus  perhaps  los 
ing  enough  votes  in  New  York  to  Birney  to  defeat  him. 
After  the  election  the  current  for  annexation  seemed 
too  strong  ;  and  a  resolution  passed  both  houses  author 
izing  the  admission  of  Texas  as  a  state.  The  resolution 
provided  for  the  formation  of  four  additional  states  out 
of  Texas.  In  any  such  additional  state  formed  north 
of  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  slavery  was  to  be  pro 
hibited  ;  but  in  those  south  of  it  slavery  was  to  be  per 
mitted  or  prohibited  as  the  inhabitants  might  choose. 

Slavery  was  now  clearly  before  the  political  conscience 
of  the  nation.  Van  Buren  was  the  conspicuous  victim 
of  the  first  encounter.  The  Baltimore  convention  had 
in  its  platform  complimented  "  their  illustrious  fellow 
citizen,"  "  his  inflexible  fidelity  to  the  Constitution,"  his 
"  ability,  integrity,  and  firmness,"  and  had  tendered  to 
him,  "  in  honorable  retirement,"  the  assurance  of  the 


354  MARTIN  VAN   BUREN. 

deeply-seated  "  confidence,  affection,  and  respect  of  the 
American  Democracy."  This  sentence  to  "honorable 
retirement "  Van  Buren,  who  was  only  in  his  sixty- 
second  year  and  in  the  amplitude  of  his  natural  powers, 
received  with  outward  complacency.  On  the  eve  of  the 
election  he  pointed  out,  probably  referring  to  Cass,  that 
the  hostility  to  him  had  not  been  in  the  interest  of  Polk, 
and  warmly  said  that,  unless  the  Democratic  creed  were  a 
delusion,  personal  feelings  ought  to  be  turned  to  nothing. 
Van  Buren  was,  however,  profoundly  affected  by  what 
he  deemed  the  undeserved  southern  hostility  to  himself. 
For  he  hardly  yet  appreciated  that  his  defeat  was  politi 
cally  legitimate,  and  not  the  result  of  political  treachery 
or  envy.  Between  him  and  the  southern  politicians  had 
opened  a  true  and  deep  division  over  the  greatest  single 
question  in  American  politics  since  Jefferson's  election. 

With  Folk's  accession  and  the  Mexican  war,  the 
schism  in  the  Democratic  ranks  over  the  extension  of 
American  slave  territory  became  plainer.  Even  during 
the  canvass  of  1844  a  circular  had  been  issued  by  Wil 
liam  Cullen  Bryant,  David  Dudley  Field,  John  W.  Ed 
monds,  and  other  Van  Buren  men,  supporting  Polk,  but 
urging  the  choice  of  congressmen  opposed  to  annexa 
tion.  Early  in  the  new  administration  the  division  of 
New  York  Democrats  into  "  barnburners "  arid  "  old 
hunkers  "  appeared.  The  former  were  the  strong  pro- 
Van  Buren,  anti-Texas  men,  or  "  radical  Democrats," 
who  were  likened  to  the  farmer  who  burned  his  barn  to 
clear  it  of  rats.  The  latter  were  the  "  northern  men 
with  southern  principles,"  the  supporters  of  annexation, 
and  the  respectable,  dull  men  of  easy  consciences,  who 
were  said  to  hanker  after  the  offices.  The  Barnburn 
ers  were  led  by  men  of  really  eminent  ability  and 


THE    W1LMOT  PROVISO.  355 

exalted  character  :  Silas  Wright,  then  governor,  Benja 
min  F.  Butler,  John  A.  Dix,  chosen  in  1845  to  the 
United  States  senate,  Azariah  C.  Flagg,  the  famous 
comptroller,  and  John  Van  Buren,  the  ex-president's 
son,  and  a  singularly  picturesque  figure  in  politics,  who 
was,  in  1845,  made  attorney-general  by  the  legislature. 
He  had  been  familiarly  called  "  Prince  John  "  since  his 
travels  abroad  during  his  father's  presidency.  Daniel 
S.  Dickinson  and  William  L.  Marcy  were  the  chief 
figures  in  the  Hunker  ranks.  Polk  seemed  inclined,  at 
the  beginning,  to  favor,  or  at  least  to  placate,  the  Barn 
burners.  He  offered  the  treasury  to  Wright,  though 
he  is  said  to  have  known  that  Wright  could  not  leave 
the  governorship.  He  offered  Butler  the  war  depart 
ment,  but  the  latter's  devotion  to  his  profession,  for 
which  he  had  resigned  the  attorney-general's  place  in 
Van  Buren's  cabinet,  made  him  prefer  the  freedom  of 
the  United  States  attorneyship  at  New  York,  and  Marcy 
was  finally  given  the  New  York  place  in  the  cabinet. 
Jackson's  death  in  June,  1845,  deprived  the  Van  Buren 
men  of  the  tremendous  moral  weight  which  his  name 
carried,  and  which  might  have  daunted  Polk.  It  per 
haps  also  helped  to  loosen  the  weight  of  party  ties  on 
the  Van  Buren  men.  After  this  the  schism  rapidly 
grew.  In  the  fall  election  of  1845  the  Barnburners 
pretty  thoroughly  controlled  the  Democratic  party  of 
the  state  in  hostility  to  the  Mexican  war,  which  the  an 
nexation  of  Texas  had  now  brought.  Samuel  J.  Tilden 
of  Columbia  county,  and  a  profound  admirer  of  Van 
Buren,  became  one  of  their  younger  leaders. 

Now  arose  the  strife  over  the  "  Wilmot  proviso,"  in 
which  was  embodied  the  opposition  to  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  new  territories.  Upon  this  proviso  the 


356  MARTIN  VAN  DUREN. 

modern  Republican  party  was  formed  eight  years  later  ; 
upon  it,  fourteen  years  later,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
chosen  president ;  and  upon  it  began  the  war  for  the 
Union,  out  of  whose  throes  came  the  vastly  grander  and 
unsought  beneficence  of  complete  emancipation.  David 
Wilmot  was  a  Democratic  member  of  Congress  from 
Pennsylvania ;  in  New  York  he  would  have  been  a 
Barnburner.  In  1846  a  bill  was  pending  to  appropri 
ate  $3,000,000  for  use  by  the  president  in  a  purchase 
of  territory  from  Mexico  as  part  of  a  peace.  Wilmot 
proposed  an  amendment  that  slavery  should  be  excluded 
from  any  territory  so  acquired.  All  the  Democratic 
members,  as  well  as  the  Whigs  from  New  York,  and 
most  strongly  the  Van  Buren  or  Wright  men,  sup 
ported  the  proviso.  The  Democratic  legislature  ap 
proved  it  by  the  votes  of  the  Whigs  with  the  Barnburn 
ers  and  the  Soft  Hunkers,  the  latter  being  Hunkers  less 
friendly  to  slavery.  It  passed  the  house  at  Washing 
ton,  but  was  rejected  by  the  senate,  not  so  quickly  open 
to  popular  sentiment.  In  the  Democratic  convention  of 
New  York,  in  October,  1846,  the  "  war  for  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery  "  was  charged  by  the  Barnburners  on 
the  Hunkers.  The  former  were  victorious,  and  Silas 
Wright  was  renominated  for  governor,  to  be  defeated, 
however,  at  the  election.  Polk,  Marcy,  and  Dickinson, 
angered  at  the  Democratic  opposition  in  New  York  to 
the  pro-slavery  Mexican  policy,  now  threw  all  the 
weight  of  federal  patronage  against  the  Barnburners, 
many  of  whom  believed  the  administration  to  have 
been  responsible  for  Wright's  defeat.  Van  Buren  and 
his  influence  were  completely  separated  from  the  na 
tional  administration.  Just  before  the  adjournment  of 
Congress  in  1847,  the  appropriation  to  secure  territory 


THE  BARNBURNERS.  £57 

from  Mexico  was  again  proposed.  Again  the  Wilmot 
proviso  was  added  in  the  house ;  again  it  was  rejected 
in  the  senate,  to  the  defeat  of  the  appropriation ;  and 
again  Barnburners  and  Whigs  carried  in  the  New  York 
legislature  a  resolution  approving  it,  and  directing  the 
New  York  senators  to  support  it. 

The  tide  was  rising.  It  seemed  that  Mexican  law 
prohibited  slavery  in  New  Mexico  and  California,  and 
that  upon  their  cession  the  principles  of  international 
law  would  preserve  their  condition  of  freedom.  Ben- 
ton,  therefore,  deemed  the  Wilmot  proviso  unnecessary ; 
a  "  thing  of  nothing  in  itself,  and  seized  upon  to  con 
flagrate  the  states  and  dissolve  the  Union."  For  the 
supreme  court  had  not  then  pronounced  slavery  a  neces 
sary  accompaniment  of  American  supremacy.  But  the 
legal  protection  of  freedom  was  practically  unsubstan 
tial,  even  if  not  technical ;  there  could  be  no  doubt  of 
the  determination  of  the  South  to  carry  slavery  into 
these  territories,  whatever  might  be  the  obligations  of 
either  municipal  or  international  law  ;  and  their  con 
quest,  therefore,  made  imminent  a  decision  of  the  vital 
question  whether  slavery  should  be  still  further  ex 
tended. 

At  the  Democratic  convention  at  Syracuse,  in  Sep 
tember,  1847,  the  Hunkers,  after  a  fierce  struggle  over 
contested  seats,  seized  control  of  the  body.  David 
Dudley  Field,  for  the  Barnburners,  proposed  a  resolu 
tion  that,  although  the  Democracy  of  New  York  would 
faithfully  adhere  to  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution 
and  maintain  the  reserved  rights  of  the  states,  they 
would  still  declare,  since  the  crisis  had  come,  "  their 
uncompromising  hostility  to  the  extension  of  slavery  into 
territory  now  free."  This  was  defeated.  The  Barn- 


358  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

burners  then  seceded,  and  issued  an  address,  in  which 
Lawrence  Van  Buren,  the  ex-president's  brother,  joined. 
They  protested  that  the  anti-slavery  resolution  had  been 
defeated  by  a  fraudulent  organization  of  the  convention, 
and  called  a  mass  meeting  at  Herkimer,  on  October  26, 
"to  avow  their  principles  and  consult  as  to  future 
action."  The  Herkimer  convention  was  really  an  im 
portant  preliminary  to  the  formation  of  the  modern 
Republican  party.  It  was  a  gathering  of  the  ex-presi 
dent's  friends.  Cambreleng,  his  old  associate,  presided  ; 
David  Wilmot  addressed  the  meeting  ;  and  John  Van 
Buren,  now  very  conspicuous  in  politics,  reported  the 
resolutions.  In  these  the  fraud  at  Syracuse  was  again 
denounced ;  a  convention  was  called  for  Washington's 
birthday  in  1848,  to  choose  Barnburner  delegates  to 
contest  the  seats  of  those  chosen  by  the  Hunkers  in  the 
national  Democratic  convention.  It  was  declared  that 
the  freemen  of  New  York  would  not  submit  to  slavery 
in  the  conquered  provinces  ;  and  that,  against  the  threat 
of  Democrats  at  the  South  that  they  would  support  no 
candidate  for  the  presidency  who  did  not  assent  to  the 
extension  of  slavery,  the  Democrats  of  New  York  would 
proclaim  their  determination  to  vote  for  no  candidate 
who  did  so  assent. 

It  was  clear  that  Van  Buren  sympathized  with  all 
this.  Relieved  from  the  constraint  of  power,  there 
strongly  revived  his  old  hostility  to  slavery ;  he  recalled 
his  vote  twenty-eight  years  before  against  admitting 
Missouri  otherwise  than  free.  He  now  perceived  how 
profound  had  really  been  the  political  division  between 
him  and  the  southern  Democrats  when,  in  1844,  he 
wrote  his  Texas  letter.  Ignoring  the  legitimate  char 
acter  of  the  politics  of  Folk's  administration  in  denying 


THE   BARNBURNERS.  359 

official  recognition  or  reward  to  Barnburners,  —  legiti 
mate  if,  as  Van  Buren  had  himself  pretty  uniformly 
maintained,  patronage  should  go  to  friends  rather  than 
enemies,  and  if,  as  was  obvious,  there  had  arisen  a  true 
political  division  upon  principles,  —  Van  Buren  was 
now  touched  with  anger  at  the  proscription  of  his 
friends.  Excluded  from  the  power  which  ought  to  have 
belonged  to  the  chief  of  Democrats  enjoying  even  in 
"  honorable  retirement "  the  "  confidence,  affection,  and 
respect "  of  his  party,  independence  rapidly  grew  less 
heinous  in  his  eyes.  One  can  hardly  doubt  that  there 
now  more  freely  welled  up  in  his  mind,  to  clarify  and 
aid  its  vision,  the  sense  of  personal  wrong  which  since 
Folk's  nomination  had  been  so  long  held  in  magnani 
mous  and  dignified  restraint,  though  of  this  he  was  prob 
ably  unconscious.  Van  Buren  was  not  insincere  when, 
in  October,  1847,  he  wrote  from  Linden wald  to  an 
enthusiastic  Democratic  editor  in  Pennsylvania,  who 
had  hoisted  his  name  to  the  top  of  his  columns  for  1848. 
Whatever,  he  said,  had  been  his  aspirations  in  the  past, 
he  now  had  no  desire  to  be  president ;  every  day  con 
firmed  him  in  the  political  opinions  to  which  he  had 
adhered.  Conscious  of  always  having  done  his  duty  to 
the  people  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  he  had  "  no  heart 
burnings  to  be  allayed  and  no  resentments  to  be  grati 
fied  by  a  restoration  of  power."  Life  at  Linden  wald 
was  entirely  adapted  to  his  taste ;  and  he  was  (so  he 
wrote,  and  so  doubtless  he  had  forced  himself  to  think) 
"  sincerely  and  heartily  desirous  to  wear  the  honors  and 
enjoyments  of  private  life  uninterruptedly  to  the  end." 
If  tendered  a  unanimous  Democratic  support  with  the 
assurance  of  the  election  it  would  bring,  he  should  not 
"  hesitate  respectfully  and  gratefully,  but  decidedly  to 


360  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

decline  it,"  adding,  however,  the  proviso  so  precious  to 
public  men,  "  consulting  only  my  own  feelings  and 
wishes."  It  was  in  the  last  degree  improbable,  he  said, 
and  so  it  was,  that  any  emergency  should  arise  in  which 
this  indulgence  of  his  own  preferences  would,  in  the 
opinion  of  his  true  and  faithful  friends,  conflict  with  his 
duty  to  the  party  to  which  his  whole  life  had  been 
devoted,  and  to  which  he  owed  any  personal  sacrifice. 
The  Mexican  war  had,  he  said,  been  so  completely 
sanctioned  by  the  government  that  it  must  be  carried 
through ;  and,  he  ominously  added,  the  propriety  of 
thereafter  instituting  inquiries  into  the  necessity  of  its 
occurrence,  so  as  to  fix  the  just  responsibility  to  public 
opinion  of  public  servants,  was  then  out  of  season.  Not 
a  word  of  praise  did  he  speak  of  Folk's  administration  ; 
in  this  he  was  for  once  truly  and  grimly  "  non-com 
mittal." 

In  the  New  York  canvass  of  1847,  the  Barnburners, 
after  their  secession,  u  talked  of  indifferent  matters." 
The  Whigs  were  therefore  completely  successful.  In 
the  legislature  the  Barnburners,  or  "  Freesoilers "  as 
they  began  to  be  called,  outnumbered  the  Hunkers. 
Dickinson  proposed  in  the  senate  at  Washington  a  reso 
lution,  the  precursor  of  Douglass's  "  squatter  sovereign 
ty,"  —  that  all  questions  concerning  the  domestic  policy 
of  the  territories  should  be  left  to  their  legislatures  to  be 
chosen  by  their  people,  Lewis  Cass,  now  the  coming 
candidate  of  the  South,  asserted  in  December,  1847,  the 
same  proposition,  pointing  out  that,  if  Congress  could 
abolish  the  relation  of  master  and  servant  in  the  terri 
tories,  it  might  in  like  manner  treat  the  relation  of  hus 
band  and  wife.  After  this  "  Nicholson  letter  "  of  his, 
Cass  might  well  have  been  asked  whether  he  would 


THE  FREE-SOIL  PARTY.  361 

have  approved  the  admission  of  a  state  where  the  last 
relation  was  forbidden,  and  where  concubinage  existed 
as  a  "  domestic  institution."  Dickinson's  proposal 
meant  that  the  first  settlers  of  each  territory  should 
determine  it  to  freedom  or  to  slavery  ;  it  meant  that  in 
admitting  new  states  the  nation  ought  to  be  indifferent 
to  their  laws  on  slavery.  If  slavery  were  a  mere  inci 
dent  in  the  polity  of  the  state,  a  matter  of  taste  or  con 
venience,  the  proposition  would  have  been  true  enough. 
But  euphemistic  talk  about  k'  domestic  institutions '? 
blinded  none  but  theorists  or  lovers  of  slavery  to  the 
truth  that  slavery  was  a  fearful  and  barbarous  power, 
and  that  it  must  become  paramount  in  any  new  southern 
state,  monstrous  and  corrupting  in  its  tendencies  towards 
savagery,  unyielding,  wasteful,  and  ruinous,  —  a  power 
whose  corruption  and  savagery,  whose  waste  and  ruin, 
infected,  debauched,  and  enfeebled  all  communities 
closely  allied  to  the  states  which  maintained  it,  —  a 
power  in  whose  rapid  growth,  in  whose  affirmative  and 
dictatorial  arrogance,  and  in  the  intellectual  ability  and 
even  the  moral  excellences  of  the  aristocracy  which 
administered  it  at  the  South,  there  was  an  appalling 
menace.  As  well  might  one  propose  the  admission  to 
political  intimacy  and  national  unity  of  a  state  whose 
laws  encouraged  leprosy  or  required  the  funeral  obla 
tions  of  the  suttee.  If  there  were  already  slave  states 
in  the  confederacy,  it  was  no  less  true  that  the  nation 
had  profoundly  suffered  from  their  slavery.  Nor  could 
all  the  phrases  of  constitutional  lawyers  make  the  slave- 
block,  the  black  laws,  and  all  the  practices  of  this  bar 
barism  mere  local  peculiarities,  distasteful  perhaps  to 
the  North  but  not  concerning  it,  peculiarities  to  be 
ranked  with  laws  of  descent  or  judicial  procedure. 


362  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Cass  and  Dickinson  for  their  surrender  to  the  South 
were  now  called  "doughfaces"  and  "  slavocrats  "  by  the 
Democratic  Freesoilers.  They  were  the  true  "  northern 
men  with  southern  principles." 

The  Barnburners  met  at  Utica  on  February  16,  an 
earlier  day  than  that  first  appointed,  John  Van  Buren 
again  being  the  chief  figure.  The  convention  praised 
John  A.  Dix  for  supporting  the  Wilmot  proviso  ;  and 
declared  that  Benton,  a  senator  from  a  slave  state,  but 
now  a  sturdy  opponent  of  extending  the  evil,  and  long 
the  warm  friend  and  admirer  of  Van  Buren,  had  "  won 
a  proud  preeminence  among  the  statesmen  of  the  day." 
Delegates  were  chosen  to  the  national  convention  to 
oppose  the  Hunkers.  In  April,  1848,  the  Barnburner 
members  of  the  legislature  issued  an  address,  the  authors 
of  which  were  long  afterwards  disclosed  by  Samuel  J. 
Tilden  to  be  himself  and  Martin  and  John  Van  Buren. 
At  great  length  it  demonstrated  the  Free-soil  principles 
of  the  Democratic  fathers. 

The  national  convention  assembled  in  May,  1848.  It 
offered  to  admit  the  Barnburner  and  Hunker  delegations 
together  to  cast  the  vote  of  the  state.  The  Barnburners 
rejected  the  compromise  as  a  simple  nullification  of  the 
vote  of  the  state,  and  then  withdrew.  Lewis  Cass  was 
nominated  for  president,  the  Wilmot  proviso  being  thus 
emphatically  condemned.  For  Cass  had  declared  in 
favor  of  letting  the  new  territories  themselves  decide 
upon  slavery.  The  Barnburners,  returning  to  a  great 
meeting  in  the  City  Hall  Park  at  New  York,  cried, 
u  The  lash  has  resounded  through  the  halls  of  the  Capi 
tol  !  "  and  condemned  the  cowardice  of  northern  sena 
tors  who  had  voted  with  the  South.  Among  the  letters 
read  was  one  from  Franklin  Pierce,  who  had  in  1844 


THE  FREE-SOIL  PARTY.  363 

voted  against  annexation,  a  letter  which  years  afterwards 
was,  with  a  reference  to  his  famous  friend  and  bio 
grapher,  called  the  "  Scarlet  Letter."  The  delegates 
issued  an  address  written  by  Tilden,  fearlessly  calling 
Democrats  to  independent  action.  In  June  a  Barnburner 
convention  met  at  Utica.  Its  president,  Samuel  Young, 
who  had  refused  at  the  convention  at  Baltimore  in  1844 
to  vote  for  Polk  when  the  rest  of  his  delegation  sur 
rendered,  said  that  if  the  convention  did  its  duty,  a  clap 
of  political  thunder  would  in  November  "  make  the  pro 
pagandists  of  slavery  shake  like  Belshazzar."  Butler, 
John  Van  Buren,  and  Preston  King,  afterwards  a  Re 
publican  senator,  were  there.  David  Dudley  Field  read 
an  explicit  declaration  from  the  ex-president  against  the 
action  and  the  candidates  of  the  national  convention. 
This  letter,  whose  prolixity  is  an  extreme  illustration  of 
Van  Buren's  literary  fault,  created  a  profound  impres 
sion.  He  declared  his  "  unchangeable  determination 
never  again  to  be  a  candidate  for  public  office."  The 
requirement  by  the  national  convention  that  the  New 
York  delegates  should  pledge  themselves  to  vote  for  any 
candidate  who  might  be  nominated  was,  he  said,  an 
indignity  of  the  rankest  character.  The  Virginia  dele 
gates  had  been  permitted,  without  incurring  a  threat  of 
exclusion,  to  declare  that  they  would  not  support  a  cer 
tain  nominee.  The  convention  had  not  allowed  the 
Democrats  of  New  York  fair  representation,  and  its  acts 
did  not  therefore  bind  them. 

The  point  of  political  regularity,  when  discussed  upon 
a  technical  basis,  was,  however,  by  no  means  clear.  The 
real  question  was  whether  the  surrender  of  the  power 
of  Congress  over  the  territories  and  the  refusal  to  use 
that  power  to  exclude  slavery,  accorded  with  Democratic 


364  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

principles.  On  this  Van  Buren  was  most  explicit. 
Jefferson  had  proposed  freedom  for  the  northwest  terri 
tories  ;  and  all  the  representatives  from  the  slaveholding 
states  had  voted  for  the  ordinance.  Not  only  Washing 
ton  and  the  elder  and  younger  Adams  had  signed  bills 
imposing  freedom  as  the  condition  of  admitting  new 
territories  or  states,  but  those  undoubted  Democrats, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  Jackson,  had  signed 
such  bills  ;  and  so  had  he  himself  in  1838  in  the  case  of 
Iowa.  This  power  of  Congress  was  part  of  "  the  com 
promises  of  the  Constitution," compromises  which,  "deep 
ly  penetrated  "  as  he  had  been  "  by  the  convictions  that 
slavery  was  the  only  subject  that  could  endanger  our 
blessed  Union,"  he  had,  he  was  aware,  gone  further  to 
sustain  against  northern  attacks  than  many  of  his  best 
friends  approved.  He  would  go  no  further.  As  the 
national  convention  had  rejected  this  old  doctrine  of  the 
Democracy,  he  should  not  vote  for  its  candidate,  General 
Cass  ;  and  if  there  were  no  other  candidate  but  General 
Taylor,  he  should  not  vote  for  president.  If  our  ances 
tors,  when  the  opinion  and  conduct  of  the  world  about 
slavery  were  very  different,  had  rescued  from  slavery 
the  territory  now  making  five  great  states,  should  we, 
he  asked,  in  these  later  days,  after  the  gigantic  efforts 
of  Great  Britain  for  freedom,  and  when  nearly  all  man 
kind  were  convinced  of  its  evils,  doom  to  slavery  a  ter 
ritory  from  which  as  many  more  new  states  might  be 
made.  He  counseled  moderation  and  forbearance,  but 
still  a  firm  resistance  to  injustice. 

This  powerful  declaration  from  the  old  chief  of  the 
Democracy  was  decisive  with  the  convention.  Van 
Buren  was  nominated  for  president,  and  Henry  Dodge, 
a  Democratic  senator  of  Wisconsin,  for  vice-president. 


THE   FREE-SOIL   PARTY.  365 

Dodge,  however,  declined,  proud  though  he  would  be, 
as  he  said,  to  have  his  name  under  other  circumstances 
associated  with  Van  Buren's.  But  his  state  had  been 
represented  in  the  Baltimore  convention  ;  and  as  one 
of  its  citizens  he  cordially  concurred  in  the  nomination 
of  Cass.  A  national  convention  was  called  to  meet  at 
Buffalo  on  August  9,  1848. 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  son  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  presided  at  the  Buffalo  convention ;  and  in  it 
Joshua  R.  Giddings,  the  famous  abolitionist,  and  Salmon 
P.  Chase  were  conspicuous.  To  the  unspeakable  horror 
of  every  Hunker  there  participated  in  the  deliberations  a 
negro,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ward.  Butler  reported  the  resolu 
tions  in  words  whose  inspiration  is  still  fresh  and  ringing. 
They  were  assembled,  it  was  said,  "  to  secure  free  soil 
for  a  free  people ;"  the  Democratic  and  Whig  organiza 
tions  had  been  dissolved,  the  one  by  stifling  the  voice  of 
a  great  constituency,  the  other  by  abandoning  its  prin 
ciples  for  mere  availability.  Remembering  the  example 
of  their  fathers  in  the  first  declaration  of  independence, 
they  now,  putting  their  trust  in  God,  planted  themselves 
on  the  national  platform  of  freedom  in  opposition  to  the 
sectional  platform  of  slavery ;  they  proposed  no  inter 
ference  with  slavery  in  any  state,  but  its  prohibition  in 
the  territories  then  free  ;  for  Congress,  they  said,  had 
"  no  more  power  to  make  a  slave  than  to  make  a  king." 
There  must  be  no  more  compromises  with  slavery. 
They  accepted  the  issue  forced  upon  them  by  the  slave 
power  ;  and  to  its  demand  for  more  slave  states  and 
more  slave  territories,  their  calm  and  final  answer  was, 
"  no  more  slave  states  and  no  more  slave  territory."  At 
the  close  were  the  stirring  and  memorable  words  :  "  We 
inscribe  on  our  banner,  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  Free 


366  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Labor,  and  Free  Men ;  and  under  it  we  will  fight  on 
and  fight  ever,  until  a  triumphant  victory  shall  reward 
our  exertions." 

Joshua  Leavitt  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  "  black 
est  "  of  abolitionists,  reported  to  the  convention  the  name 
of  Martin  Van  Buren  for  president.  After  the  convention 
was  over,  even  Gerrit  Smith,  the  ultra-abolitionist  candi 
date,  declared  that,  of  all  the  candidates  whom  there 
was  the  least  reason  to  believe  the  convention  would 
nominate,  Van  Buren  was  his  preference.  The  nomina 
tion  was  enthusiastically  made  by  acclamation,  after 
Van  Buren  had  on  an  informal  ballot  received  159 
votes  to  129  cast  for  John  P.  Hale.  A  brief  letter 
from  Van  Buren  was  read,  declaring  that  his  nomina 
tion  at  Utica  had  been  against  his  earnest  wishes ;  that 
he  had  yielded  because  his  obligation  to  the  friends,  who 
had  now  gone  so  far,  required  him  to  abide  by  their 
decision  that  his  name  was  necessary  to  enable  "  the 
ever  faithful  Democracy  of  New  York  to  sustain  them 
selves  in  the  extraordinary  position  into  which  they  have 
been  driven  by  the  injustice  of  others  ;  "  but  that  the 
abandonment  at  Buffalo  of  his  Utica  nomination  would 
be  most  satisfactory  to  his  feelings  and  wishes.  The 
exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  territories  was  an  object, 
he  said,  "  sacred  in  the  sight  of  heaven,  the  accomplish 
ment  of  which  is  due  to  the  memories  of  the  great  and 
just  men  long  since,  we  trust,  made  perfect  in  its  courts." 
Charles  Francis  Adams  was  nominated  for  vice-presi 
dent  ;  and  dazzled  and  incredulous  eyes  beheld  on  a 
presidential  ticket  with  Martin  Van  Buren  the  son  of 
one  of  his  oldest  and  bitterest  adversaries.  That  adver 
sary  had  died  a  few  months  before,  the  best  of  his 
honors  being  his  latest,  those  won  in  a  querulous  but 
valiant  old  age,  in  a  fiery  fight  for  freedom. 


THE  FREE-SOIL  PARTY.  867 

In  September,  John  A.  Dix,  then  a  Democratic  sena 
tor,  accepted  the  Free-soil  nomination  for  governor  of 
New  York.  The  Democratic  party  was  aghast.  The 
schismatics  had  suddenly  gained  great  dignity  and 
importance.  Martin  Van  Buren,  the  venerable  leader 
of  the  party,  its  most  famous  and  distinguished  member, 
this  courtly,  cautious  statesman,  —  could  it  be  he  rushing 
from  that  "  honorable  retirement,"  to  whose  safe  retreat 
his  party  had  committed  him  with  so  deep  an  affection, 
to  consort  with  long-haired  and  wild-eyed  abolitionists ! 
He  was  the  arch  "  apostate,"  leading  fiends  of  disunion 
who  would  rather  rule  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven. 
Where  now  was  his  boasted  loyalty  to  the  party  ?  Rage 
struggled  with  loathing.  All  the  ancient  stories  told  of 
him  by  Whig  enemies  were  revived,  and  believed  by 
those  who  had  long  treated  them  with  contempt.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  Van  Buren's  attitude  was  in  no 
wise  inconsistent  with  his  record.  His  party  had  never 
pronounced  for  the  extension  of  slavery  ;  nor  had  he. 
The  Buffalo  convention  was  silent  upon  abolition  in  the 
District  of  Columbia.  There  was  for  the  time  in  politics 
but  one  question,  and  that  was  born  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  —  Shall  slavery  go  into  free  territory  ?  As 
amid  the  clash  of  arms  the  laws  are  stilled,  so  in  the 
great  fight  for  human  freedom,  the  independent  treas 
ury,  the  tariff,  and  internal  improvements  could  no 
longer  divide  Americans. 

The  Whigs  had  in  June  nominated  Taylor,  one  of  the 
two  heroes  of  the  Mexican  war.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  Taylor  had  been  authoritatively  sounded  by  the 
Free-soil  leaders  as  to  an  acceptance  of  their  nomina 
tion.  Clay  and  Webster  were  now  discarded  by  their 
party  for  this  bluff  soldier,  a  Louisiana  slaveholder  of 


3C8  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

unknown  politics  ;  and  with  entire  propriety  and  perfect 
caution  the  Whigs  made  no  platform.  A  declaration 
against  the  extension  of  slavery  was  voted  down.  Web 
ster  said  at  Marshfield,  after  indignation  at  Taylor's 
nomination  had  a  little  worn  away,  that  for  "  the  leader 
of  the  Free-spoil  party  "  to  "  become  the  leader  of  the 
Free-soil  party  would  be  a  joke  to  shake  his  sides  and 
mine."  The  anti-slavery  Whigs  hesitated  for  a  time  ; 
but  Seward  of  New  York  and  Horace  Greeley  in  the 
New  York  Tribune  finally  led  most  of  them  to  Taylor 
rather  than,  as  Seward  said,  engage  in  "  guerrilla  war 
fare  "  under  Van  Bureri.  Whigs  must  not,  he  added, 
leave  the  ranks  because  of  the  Whig  affront  to  Clay  and 
Webster.  "Is  it  not,"  he  finely,  though  for  the  occasion 
sophistically,  said,  "  by  popular  injustice  that  greatness 
is  burnished  ?  "  This  launching  of  the  modern  Repub 
lican  party  was,  strangely  enough,  to  include  in  New 
York  few  besides  Democrats.  In  November,  1847,  the 
Liberty  or  Abolition  party  nominated  John  P.  Hale  for 
president ;  but  upon  Van  Buren's  nomination  he  was 
withdrawn. 

Upon  the  popular  vote  in  November,  1848,  Van  Buren 
received  291,263  votes,  while  there  were  1,220,544  for 
Cass  and  1,360,099  for  Taylor.  Van  Buren  had  no 
electoral  votes.  In  no  state  did  he  receive  as  many 
votes  as  Taylor  ;  but  in  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and 
Vermont  he  had  more  than  Cass.  The  vote  of  New 
York  was  an  extraordinary  tribute  to  his  personal 
power  :  he  had  120,510  votes  to  114,318  for  Cass  ;  and 
it  was  clear  that  nearly  all  the  former  came  from  the 
Democratic  party.  In  Ohio  he  had  35,354  votes,  most 
of  which  were  probably  drawn  from  the  Whig  abolition 
ists.  In  Massachusetts  he  had  38,058  votes,  in  no  small 


POLITICAL   CAREER  ENDED.  369 

part  owing  to  the  early  splendor,  the  moral  austerity  and 
the  elevation  of  Charles  Stunner's  eloquence.  "It  is 
not,"  he  said,  "  for  the  Van  Buren  of  1838  that  we  are 
to  vote ;  but  for  the  Van  Buren  of  to-day,  —  the  vet 
eran  statesman,  sagacious,  determined,  experienced,  who, 
at  an  age  when  most  men  are  rejoicing  to  put  off  their 
armor,  girds  himself  anew  and  enters  the  lists  as  cham 
pion  of  Freedom."  Taylor  had  163  electoral  votes  and 
Cass  127. 

The  political  career  of  Van  Buren  was  now  ended. 
It  is  mere  speculation  whether  he  had  thought  his  elec 
tion  a  possible  thing.  That  he  should  think  so  was  very 
unlikely.  Few  men  had  a  cooler  judgment  of  political 
probabilities  ;  few  knew  better  how  powerful  was  party 
discipline  in  the  Democratic  ranks,  for  no  one  had  done 
more  to  create  it ;  few  could  have  appreciated  more 
truly  the  Whig  hatred  of  himself.  Still  the  wakening 
rush  of  moral  sentiment  was  so  strong,  the  bitterness  of 
Van  Buren's  Ohio  and  New  York  supporters  had  been 
so  great  at  his  defeat  in  1844,  that  it  seemed  not  utterly 
absurd  that  those  two  states  might  vote  for  him.  If  they 
did,  that  dream  of  every  third  party  in  America  might 
come  true,  —  the  failure  of  either  of  the  two  great 
parties  to  obtain  a  majority  in  the  electoral  college,  and 
the  consequent  choice  of  president  in  the  house,  where 
each  of  them  might  prefer  the  third  party  to  its  greater 
rival.  Ambition  to  reenter  the  White  House  could 
indeed  have  had  but  the  slightest  influence  with  him 
when  he  accepted  the  Free-soil  nomination.  Nor  was 
his  acceptance  an  act  of  revenge,  as  has  very  commonly 
been  said.  The  motives  of  a  public  man  in  such  a  case 
are  subtle  and  recondite  even  to  himself.  No  distin 
guished  political  leader  with  strong  and  publicly  declared 


370  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

opinions,  however  exalted  his  temper,  can  help  uniting 
in  his  mind  the  cause  for  which  he  has  fought  with  his 
own  political  fortunes.  If  he  be  attacked,  he  is  certain 
to  honestly  believe  the  attack  made  upon  the  cause 
as  well  as  upon  himself.  When  his  party  drives  him 
from  a  leadership  already  occupied  by  him,  he  may  sub 
mit  without  a  murmur  ;  but  he  will  surely  harbor  the 
belief  that  his  party  is  playing  false  with  its  principles. 
In  1848  there  was  a  great  and  new  cause  for  which  Van 
Buren  stood,  and  upon  which  his  party  took  the  wrong 
side ;  but  doubtless  his  zeal  burned  somewhat  hotter,  the 
edge  of  his  temper  was  somewhat  keener,  for  what  he 
thought  the  indignities  to  himself  and  his  immediate 
political  friends.  To  say  this  is  simply  to  pronounce 
him  human.  His  acceptance  of  the  nomination  was 
given  largely  out  of  loyalty  to  those  friends  whose 
advice  was  strong  and  urgent.  It  was  the  mistake 
which  any  old  leader  of  a  political  party,  who  has 
enjoyed  its  honors,  makes  in  the  seeming  effort  —  and 
every  such  political  candidacy  at  least  seems  to  be  such 
an  effort  —  to  gratify  his  personal  ambition  at  its  ex 
pense.  Van  Buren  and  his  friends  should  have  made 
another  take  the  nomination,  to  which  his  support,  how 
ever  vigorous,  should  have  gone  sorrowfully  and  reluc 
tantly  ;  and  the  form  as  well  as  the  substance  of  his  rela 
tions  to  the  canvass  should  have  been  without  personal 
interest. 

Had  Van  Buren  died  just  after  the  election  of  1848 
his  reputation  to-day  would  be  far  higher.  He  had 
stood  firmly,  he  had  suffered  politically,  for  a  clear, 
practical,  and  philosophical  method  and  limitation  of 
government ;  he  had  adhered  with  strict  loyalty  to  the 
party  committed  to  this  method,  until  there  had  arisen 


POLITICAL   CAREER  ENDED.  371 

the  cause  of  human  freedom,  which  far  transcended  any 
question  still  open  upon  the  method  or  limits  of  govern 
ment.  With  this  cause  newly  risen,  a  cause  surely  not 
to  leave  the  political  field  except  in  victory,  he  was  now 
closely  united.  He  might  therefore  have  safely  trusted  to 
the  judgment  of  later  days  and  of  wiser  and  truer  sighted 
men,  growing  in  number  and  influence  every  year.  His 
offense  could  never  be  pardoned  by  his  former  associates 
at  the  South  and  their  allies  at  the  North.  No  confes 
sion  of  error,  though  it  were  full  of  humiliation,  no  new 
and  affectionate  return  to  party  allegiance,  could  make 
them  forget  what  they  sincerely  deemed  astounding 
treason  and  disastrous  sacrilege.  Loyal  remembrance  of 
his  incomparable  party  services  had  irretrievably  gone,  to 
be  brought  back  by  no  reasoning  and  by  no  persuasion. 
If  he  were  to  live,  he  should  not  have  wavered  from  his 
last  position.  Its  righteousness  was  to  be  plainer  and 
plainer  with  the  passing  years. 

Van  Buren  did  live,  however,  long  after  his  honorable 
battle  and  defeat ;  and  lived  to  dim  its  honor  by  the 
faltering  of  mistaken  patriotism.  In  1849  John  Van 
Buren,  during  the  efforts  to  unite  the  Democratic  party 
in  New  York,  declared  it  his  wish  to  make  it "  the  great 
anti-slavery  party  of  the  Union."  Early  in  1850  and 
when  the  compromise  was  threatened  at  Washington,  he 
wrote  to  the  Free-soil  convention  of  Connecticut  that 
there  had  never  been  a  time  when  the  opponents  of 
slavery  extension  were  more  urgently  called  to  act  with 
energy  and  decision  or  to  hold  their  representatives  to  a 
rigid  responsibility,  if  they  faltered  or  betrayed  their 
trust.  With  little  doubt  his  father  approved  these  utter 
ances.  A  year  later,  however,  the  ex-president,  with 
nearly  all  northern  men,  yielded  to  the  soporific  which" 


372  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

Clay  in  his  old  age  administered  to  the  American  people. 
In  their  support  of  the  great  compromise  between  slavery 
and  freedom,  Webster  and  Clay  forfeited  much  of  their 
fame,  and  justly.  For  though  the  cause  of  humanity 
gained  a  vast  political  advantage  in  the  admission  of 
California  as  a  free  state,  the  advantage,  it  was  plain, 
could  not  have  been  long  delayed  had  there  been  no 
compromise.  But  the  rest  of  the  new  territory  was 
thrown  into  a  struggle  among  its  settlers,  although  the 
power  of  Congress  over  the  territories  was  not  yet 
denied ;  and  a  fugitive-slave  law  of  singular  atrocity  was 
passed.  All  the  famous  northern  Whigs  were  now  true 
*'  doughfaces."  Fillmore,  president  through  Taylor's 
death,  one  of  the  most  dignified  and  timid  of  their  num 
ber,  signed  the  compromise  bills. 

The  compromise  being  passed,  Van  Buren  with  al 
most  the  entire  North  submissively  sought  to  believe 
slavery  at  last  expelled  from  politics.  It  would  have 
been  a  wise  heroism,  it  would  have  given  Van  Buren  a 
clearer,  a  far  higher  place  with  posterity,  if  after  1848 
he  had  even  done  no  more  than  remain  completely  aloof 
from  the  timid  politics  of  the  time,  if  he  had  at  least 
refused  acquiescence  in  any  compromise  by  which  con 
cessions  were  made  to  slavery.  But  he  was  an  old  man. 
He  shared  with  his  ancient  and  famous  Whig  rivals  that 
intense  love  and  almost  adoration  of  the  Union,  upon 
which  the  arrogant  leaders  of  the  South  so  long  and  so 
successfully  played.  The  compromise  was  however  ac 
complished.  It  would  perhaps  be  the  last  concession 
to  the  furious  advance  of  the  cruel  barbarism.  The 
free  settlers  in  the  new  territories  would,  he  hoped,  by 
their  number  and  hardihood,  defeat  the  incoming  slave 
owners,  and  even  under  "  squatter  sovereignty  "  save 


POLITICAL   CAREER  ENDED.  373 

their  homes  from  slavery.  If  the  Union  should  now 
stand  without  further  disturbance,  all  might  still  come 
right  without  civil  war.  Economic  laws,  the  inexorable 
and  beneficent  progress  of  civilization,  would  perhaps 
begin,  slowly  indeed  but  surely,  to  press  to  its  death  this 
remnant  of  ancient  savagery.  But  if  the  Union  were  to 
be  broken  by  a  violation  of  the  compromise,  a  vast  and 
irremediable  catastrophe  and  ruin  would  undo  all  the 
patriotic  labors  of  sixty  years,  would  dismiss  to  lasting 
unreality  the  dreams  of  three  generations  of  great  men 
who  had  loved  their  country.  It  seemed  too  appalling 
a  responsibility. 

Upon  all  this  reasoning  there  is  much  unfair  modern 
judgment.  The  small  number  of  resolute  abolitionists, 
who  cared  little  for  the  Union  in  comparison  with  the 
one  cause  of  human  rights,  and  whose  moral  fervor  found 
in  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution,  so  dear  and 
sacred  to  all  American  statesmen,  only  a  covenant  with 
hell,  may  for  the  moment  be  ignored.  Among  them 
there  was  not  a  public  man  occupying  politically  re 
sponsible  or  widely  influential  place.  The  vast  body  of 
northern  sentiment  was  in  two  great  classes.  The  one 
was  led  by  men  like  Seward,  and  even  Benton,  who  con 
sidered  the  South  a  great  bully.  They  believed  that  to 
a  firm  front  against  the  extension  of  slavery  the  South 
would,  after  many  fire-eating  words,  surrender  in  peace. 
The  other  class  included  most  of  the  influential  men  of 
the  day,  some  of  them  greater  men,  some  lesser  and 
some  little  men.  Webster,  Clay,  Cass,  Buchanan,  Marcy, 
Douglass,  Fillmore,  Dickinson,  were  now  joined  by  Van 
Buren  and  by  many  Free-soil  men  of  1848  daunted  at 
the  seeming  slowness  with  which  the  divine  mills  were 
grinding.  They  believed  that  the  South,  to  assert  the 


374  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

fancied  "  rights"  of  their  monstrous  wrong,  would  accept 
disunion  and  even  more,  that  in  this  cause  it  would 
fiercely  accept  all  the  terrors  of  a  civil  war  and  its  limit 
less  devastation.  The  event  proved  the  first  men  utterly 
in  the  wrong ;  and  it  was  fortunate  that  their  mistake 
was  not  visible  until  in  1861  the  battle  was  irreversibly 
joined.  The  second  and  more  numerous  class  were 
right.  There  had  to  be  yielding,  unless  such  evils  were 
to  be  let  loose,  unless  Webster's  "  ideas,  so  full  of  all 
that  is  horrid  and  horrible,"  were  to  come  true.  The 
anxiety  not  to  offend  the  South  was  perhaps  most  strik 
ingly  shown  after  the  election  of  Lincoln.  A  distin 
guished  living  statesman  of  the  modern  Republican  party 
has  recently  pointed  out 1  that  in  February,  1861,  the 
Republican  members  of  Congress,  and  among  them 
Charles  Sumner  and  Thaddeus  Stevens,  acquiesced  in 
the  organization  of  the  new  territories  of  Colorado,  Da 
kota,  and  Nevada,  without  any  prohibition  of  slavery, 
thus  ignoring  the  very  principle  and  the  only  principle 
upon  which  their  great  battle  had  been  fought  and  their 
great  victory  won. 

Complete  truth  dwelt  only  with  the  small  and  hated 
abolitionist  minority.  Without  honored  and  influential 
leaders  in  political  life  they  alone  saw  that  war  with  all 
these  horrors  was  better,  or  even  a  successful  secession 
was  better,  than  further  surrender  of  human  rights,  a 
surrender  whose  corruption  and  barbarism  would  cloud 
all  the  glories,  and  destroy  all  the  beneficence  of  the 
Union.  No  historical  judgment  has  been  more  unjust 
and  partial  than  the  implied  condemnation  of  Van  Buren 
for  his  acquiescence  in  Clay's  compromise,  while  only 
gentle  words  have  chided  the  great  statesmen  whose 
1  James  G.  Elaine's  Twenty  Years,  vol.  i.  pp.  269,  272. 


IN  RETIREMENT.  375 

eloquence  was  more  splendid  and  inspiring  but  whose 
devotion  to  the  Union  was  never  more  supreme  than  Van 
Buren's,  —  statesmen  who  had  made  no  sacrifice  like  his 
in  1844,  who  in  their  whitening  years  had  taken  no 
bold  step  like  his  in  1848,  and  who  had  in  1850  actively 
promoted  the  surrender  to  which  Van  Buren  did  no 
more  than  submit  after  it  was  accomplished. 

In  1852  the  overwhelming  agreement  to  the  compro 
mise  brought  on  a  colorless  presidential  campaign, 
fought  in  a  sort  of  fool's  paradise.  Its  character  was 
well  represented  by  Franklin  Pierce,  the  second  Demo 
cratic  mediocrity  raised  to  the  first  place  in  the  party 
and  the  land,  and  by  the  absurd  political  figure  of  Gen 
eral  Scott,  fitly  enough  the  last  candidate  of  the  decayed 
Whig  party.  Both  parties  heartily  approved  the  com 
promise,  but  it  mattered  little  which  of  the  two  candi 
dates  were  chosen.  The  votes  cast  for  John  P.  Hale, 
the  Free-soil  candidate,  were  as  much  more  significant 
and  honorable  as  they  were  fewer  than  those  cast  for 
Pierce  or  Scott.  Van  Buren,  in  a  note  to  a  meeting 
in  New  York,  declared  that  time  and  circumstances 
had  issued  edicts  against  his  attendance,  but  that  he 
earnestly  wished  for  Pierce's  election.  He  attempted 
no  argument  in  this,  perhaps  the  shortest  political  let 
ter  he  ever  wrote.  But  John  Van  Buren,  in  a  speech 
at  Albany,  gave  some  reasons  which  prevent  much 
condemnation  of  his  father's  perfunctory  acquiescence 
in  the  action  of  his  party.  The  movement  of  1848, 
he  said,  had  been  intended  to  prevent  the  extension 
of  slavery.  Since  then,  California  had  come  in,  a 
free  state,  and  not,  as  the  South  had  desired,  a  slave 
state  ;  and  "  the  abolition  of  the  slave  market  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  was  another  great  point  gained." 


376  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

The  poverty  of  reasons  was  shown  in  the  eager  insist 
ence  that  every  member  of  Congress  from  New  Hamp 
shire  had  voted  against  slavery  extension,  and  that  the 
Democratic  party  now  took  its  candidate  from  that  state 
"  without  any  pledges  whatever." 

After  this  election  Van  Buren  spent  two  years  in 
Europe.  President  Pierce  tendered  him  the  position  of 
the  American  arbitrator  upon  the  British-American 
claims  commission  established  under  the  treaty  of  Feb 
ruary  8,  1853,  but  he  declined.  During  his  absence 
the  South  secured  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  practical  opening 
to  slavery  of  the  new  territories  north  of  the  line  of 
36°  30'.  If  the  settlers  of  Kansas,  which  lay  wholly  on 
the  free  side  of  that  compromise  line,  desired  slavery, 
they  were  to  have  it.  But  even  this  was  not  sufficient. 
The  hardy  settlers  of  this  frontier,  separated  though 
they  were  by  the  slave  state  of  Missouri  from  free  soil 
and  free  influences,  would,  it  now  seemed,  pretty  cer 
tainly  favor  freedom.  The  ermine  of  the  supreme  court 
had,  therefore,  to  be  used  to  sanctify  with  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  the  last  demand  of  slavery,  inconsistent 
though  it  was  with  the  claims  of  the  South  from  the 
time  when  it  secured  the  Missouri  Compromise  until 
Calhoun  grimly  advanced  his  monstrous  propositions. 
Slavery  was  to  be  decreed  a  constitutional  right  in  all 
territories,  whose  exercise  in  them  Congress  was  without 
power  to  prohibit,  and  which  could  not  be  prevented 
even  by  the  ma'jority  of  their  settlers  until  they  were 
admitted  as  states. 

Van  Buren  came  back  to  America  when  there  was  still 
secret  within  the  judicial  breast  the  momentous  decision 
that  the  American  flag  carried  human  slavery  with  it 


IN  RETIREMENT.  377 

to  conquered  territory  as  a  necessary  incident  of  its 
stars  and  stripes,  and  that  Congress  could  not,  if  it 
would,  save  the  land  to  freedom.  Van  Buren  voted  for 
Buchanan ;  a  vote  essentially  inconsistent  with  his  free- 
soil  position,  a  vote  deeply  to  be  regretted.  He  still 
thought  that  free  settlers  would  defeat  the  intention  of 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  act,  and  bring  in,  as  they  after 
wards  did,  a  free  though  bleeding  Kansas.  There  was 
something  crude  and  menacing  in  this  new  Republican 
party,  and  in  its  enormous  and  growing  enthusiasm. 
It  was  hard  to  believe  that  its  candidate  had  been  seri 
ously  selected  for  chief  magistrate  of  the  United  States. 
Fremont  probably  seemed  to  Van  Buren  a  picturesque 
sentimentalist  leading  the  way  to  civil  war,  which,  if  it 
were  to  come,  ought,  so  it  seemed  to  this  former  sena 
tor  and  minister  and  president,  to  be  led  in  by  serious 
and  disciplined  statesmen.  The  new  party  was  repul 
sive  to  him  as  a  body  chiefly  of  Whigs  ;  old  and  bitter 
adversaries  whom  he  distrusted,  with  hosts  of  camp- 
followers  smelling  the  coming  spoils.  All  this  a  young 
man  might  endure,  when  he  saw  the  clear  fact  that  the 
Republican  convention,  ignoring  for  the  time  all  former 
differences,  had  pronounced  not  a  word  inconsistent 
with  the  Democratic  platform  of  1840,  and  had  made 
only  the  one  declaration  essential  to  American  freedom 
and  right,  that  slavery  should  not  go  into  the  territories. 
Van  Buren  was  not,  however,  a  young  man,  or  one  of 
the  few  old  men  in  whom  a  fiery  sense  of  morality,  an 
eager  and  buoyant  resolution,  go  unchilled  by  thinner 
and  slower  blood,  and  indomitably  overcome  the  con 
servative  influences  of  age.  A  bold  outcry  from  him, 
even  now,  would  have  placed  him  for  posterity  in  one 
of  the  few  niches  set  apart  to  the  very  greatest  Ameri- 


378  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

cans.     But  since  1848  Van  Buren  had  come  to  seventy- 
four  years. 

Invited  to  the  Tammany  Hall  celebration  of  Inde 
pendence  Day,  he  wrote,  on  June  28,  1856,  a  letter  in 
behalf  of  Buchanan.  There  was  no  diminution  in  ex 
plicit  clearness  ;  but  hope  was  nearly  gone  ;  the  peril  of 
the  Union  obscured  every  other  danger ;  the  South  was 
so  threatening  that  patriotism  seemed  to  him  to  require 
at  the  least  a  surrender  to  all  that  had  passed  ;  and  for 
the  future  our  best  reliance  would  be  upon  a  fair  vote 
in  Kansas  between  freedom  and  slavery.  He  could  not 
come  to  its  meeting,  he  told  Tammany  Hall,  because  of 
his  age.  He  had  left  one  invitation  unanswered ;  and  . 
if  he  were  so  to  leave  another,  he  might  be  suspected 
of  a  desire  to  conceal  his  sentiments.  But  this  letter 
should  be  his  last,  as  it  was  his  first,  appearance  in  the 
canvass.  He  was  glad  of  the  Democratic  reunion  ;  for 
although  not  always  perfectly  right,  in  no  other  party 
had  there  been  "  such  exclusive  regard  and  devotion  to 
the  maintenance  of  human  rights  and  the  happiness  and 
welfare  of  the  masses  of  the  people."  There  was  a 
touch  of  age  in  his  fond  recitals  of  the  long  services  of 
that  party  since,  in  Jefferson's  days,  it  had  its  origin 
with  "the  root-and-branch  friends  of  the  republican 
system  ; "  of  its  support  of  the  war  of  1812  ;  of  its 
destruction  of  the  national  bank  ;  of  its  establishment 
'of  an  independent  treasury.  But  slavery,  he  admitted, 
was  now  the  living  issue.  Upon  that  he  had  no  regrets 
for  his  course.  He  had  always  preferred  the  method 
of  dealing  with  that  institution  practiced  by  the  found 
ers  of  the  government.  He  lamented  the  recent  depar 
ture  from  that  method;  no  one  was  more  sincerely 
opposed  than  himself  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 


IN  RETIREMENT.  379 

promise.  He  had  heard  of  it,  and  had  condemned  it  in 
a  foreign  land  ;  he  had  there  foreseen  the  disastrous 
reopening  of  the  slavery  agitation.  But  the  measure  was 
now  accomplished  ;  there  was  no  more  left  than  to  decide 
what  was  the  best  now  to  do.  The  Kansas-Nebraska 
act  had,  he  said,  gradually  become  less  obnoxious  to 
him  ;  though  this  impression,  he  admitted,  might  result 
from  the  unanimous  acquiescence  in  it  of  the  party  in 
which  he  had  been  reared.  Its  operation,  he  trusted, 
would  be  beneficial ;  and  he  had  now  come  to  believe 
that  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  the  free  states  would 
be  more  respected  under  its  provisions  than  by  specific 
congressional  interference.  He  did  not  doubt  the  power 
of  Congress  to  enable  the  people  of  a  territory  to  ex 
clude  slavery.  Buchanan's  pledge  to  use  the  presiden 
tial  power  to  restore  harmony  among  the  sister  states 
could  be  redeemed  in  but  one  way  ;  and  that  was,  to 
secure  to  the  actual  settlers  of  the  territory  a  "  full, 
free,  and  practical  enjoyment  "  of  the  rights  of  suffrage 
on  the  slavery  question  conferred  by  the  act.  He 
praised  Buchanan,  if  not  exuberantly,  still  sufficiently. 
He  must,  Van  Buren  thought,  be  solicitous  for  his  rep 
utation  in  the  near  "  evening  of  his  life."  He  believed 
that  Buchanan  would  redeem  his  pledge,  and  should 
therefore  cheerfully  support  him.  If  Buchanan  were 
elected,  there  were  "  good  grounds  for  hope  "  that  the 
Union  might  be  saved.  Such  was  this  saddening  and 
despondent  letter.  It  was  a  defense  of  a  vote  which 
it  was  rather  sorry  work  that  he  should  have  needed 
to  make.  But  the  tramp  of  armies  and  the  conflagra 
tion  of  American  institutions  were  heard  and  seen  in  the 
sky  with  terrifying  vividness.  The  letter  secured, 
however,  no  forgiveness  from  the  angry  South.  The 


380  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

"  Richmond  Whig  "  said :  "  If  there  is  a  man  within 
the  limits  of  the  republic  who  is  cordially  abhorred  and 
detested  by  intelligent  and  patriotic  men  of  all  parties  at 
the  South,  that  man  is  Martin  Van  Buren." 

Many  of  the  best  Americans  shared  Van  Buren 's  dis 
trust  of  Fremont  and  of  those  who  supported  Fremont ; 
they  shared  his  love  of  peace  and  his  fear  of  that  blood 
shed,  north  and  south,  which  seemed  the  dismal  El 
Dorado  to  which  the  "  path  -finder's  "  feet  were  surely 
tending.  So  the  majority  of  the  northern  voters 
thought ;  for  those  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
who  divided  themselves  between  Buchanan  and  Fill- 
more,  the  candidate  of  the  "  Silver  Gray  "  Whigs,  con 
siderably  outnumbered  the  voters  for  Fremont. 

In  1860  Van  Buren  voted  for  the  union  electoral 
ticket  which  represented  in  New  York  the  combined 
opposition  to  Lincoln.  Every  motive  which  had  influ 
enced  him  in  1856  had  now  increased  even  more  than 
his  years.  The  Republican  party  was  not  only  now 
come  bringing,  it  seemed,  the  torch  in  full  flame  to 
light  an  awful  conflagration  ;  but  in  its  second  national 
convention  there  became  obvious  upon  the  tariff  ques 
tion  the  preponderance  of  the  Whig  elements,  which 
made  up  the  larger  though  not  the  more  earnest  or 
efficient  body  of  its  supporters. 

After  Van  Buren's  return  from  Europe  in  1855,  he 
lived  in  dignified  and  gracious  repose.  This  complete 
and  final  escape  from  the  rush  about  him  had  often 
seemed  in  his  busy  strenuous  years  full  of  delight.  But 
doubtless  now  in  the  peaceful  pleasures  of  Lindenwald 
and  in  the  occasional  glimpses  of  the  more  crowded 
social  life  of  New  York  which  was  glad  to  honor  him, 
there  were  the  regrets  and  slowly  dying  impatience,  the 


IN  RETIREMENT.  381 

sense  of  isolation,  which  must  at  the  best  touch  with 
some  sadness  the  later  and  well-earned  and  even  the 
best-crowned  years.  At  this  time  he  began  writing 
memoirs  of  his  life  and  times,  which  were  brought  down 
to  the  years  1833-1834  ;  but  they  were  never  revised 
by  him  and  have  not  been  published.  Out  of  this  work 
grew  a  sketch  of  the  early  growth  of  American  parties, 
which  was  edited  by  his  sons  and  printed  in  1867.  Its 
pages  do  not  exhibit  the  firm  and  logical  order  which 
was  so  characteristic  of  Van  Buren's  earlier  political 
compositions.  It  was  rather  the  reminiscence  of  the 
political  philosophy  which  had  completely  governed 
him.  With  some  repetitions,  but  in  an  easy  and 
interesting  way,  he  recalled  the  far-reaching  political 
differences  between  Jefferson  and  Hamilton.  In  these 
chapters  of  his  old  age  are  plain  the  profound  and 
varied  influences  which  had  been  exercised  over  him  by 
the  great  founder  of  his  party,  and  his  unquenchable 
animosity  towards  "  the  money  power  "  from  the  days 
of  the  first  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  its  victory  of 
"  buffoonery  "  in  1840.  In  one  chapter,  with  words 
rather  courtly  but  still  not  to  be  mistaken,  he  condemns 
Buchanan  for  a  violation  of  the  principles  of  Jefferson 
and  Jackson  in  accepting  the  Dred  Scott  decision  as 
a  rule  of  political  action  ;  and  this  the  more  because 
its  main  conclusion  was  unnecessary  to  adjudge  Dred 
Scott's  rights  in  that  suit,  and  because  its  announcement 
was  part  of  a  political  scheme.  Chief  Justice  Taney 
and  Buchanan,  Van  Buren  pointed  out,  though  raised 
to  power  by  the  Democratic  party,  had  joined  it  late  in 
life,  "  with  opinions  formed  and  matured  in  an  antag 
onist  school."  Both  had  come  from  the  Federalist 
ranks,  whose  political  heresy  Van  Buren  believed  to  be 
hopelessly  incurable. 


382  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

At  the  opening  of  the  civil  war  Van  Buren's  ani 
mosity  to  Buchanan's  behavior  became  more  and  more 
marked.  He  strongly  sympathized  with  the  uprising 
of  the  North ;  and  sustained  the  early  measures  of  Lin 
coln's  administration.  But  he  was  not  to  see  the  dread 
ful  but  lasting  and  benign  solution  of  the  problem  of 
American  slavery.  His  life  ended  when  the  fortunes 
of  the  nation  were  at  their  darkest ;  when  McClellan's 
seven  days'  battles  from  the  Chickahominy  to  the  James 
were  just  over,  and  the  North  was  waiting  in  terror 
lest  his  troops  might  not  return  in  time  to  save  the 
capital.  For  several  months  he  suffered  from  an  asth 
matic  attack,  which  finally  became  a  malignant  catarrh, 
causing  him  much  anguish.  In  the  latter  days  of  his 
sickness  his  mind  wandered  ;  but  when  sensible  and  col 
lected  he  still  showed  a  keen  interest  in  public  affairs, 
expressed  his  confidence  in  President  Lincoln  and  Gen 
eral  McClellan,  and  declared  his  faith  that  the  rebellion 
would  end  without  lasting  damage  to  the  Union. 

On  July  24,  1862,  he  died,  nearly  eighty  years  old, 
in  the  quiet  summer  air  at  Lindenwald,  the  noise  of  bat 
tles  far  away  from  his  green  lawns  and  clumps  of  trees. 
In  the  ancient  Dutch  church  at  Kinderhook  the  simple 
funeral  was  performed  ;  and  a  great  rustic  gathering 
paid  the  last  and  best  honor  of  honest  and  respectful 
grief  to  their  old  friend  and  neighbor.  For  his  fame 
had  brought  its  chief  honor  to  this  village  of  his  birth, 
the  village  to  which  in  happy  ending  of  his  earthly  career 
he  returned,  and  where  through  years  of  well-ordered 
thrift,  of  a  gentle  and  friendly  hospitality,  and  of  in 
teresting  and  not  embittered  reminiscence,  he  had  been 
permitted 

"  To  husband  out  life's  taper  at  the  close, 
And  keep  the  flame  from  wasting-  by  repose." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

TAN  BUREN'S  CHARACTER  AND  PLACE  IN  HISTORY. 

IN  the  engraved  portrait  of  Van  Buren  in  old  age, 
prefixed  to  his  History  of  Parties,  are  plainly  to  be  seen 
some  of  his  traits,  —  the  alert  outlooking  upon  men,  the 
bright,  easy  good-humor,  the  firm,  self-reliant  judgment. 
Inman's  painting  now  in  the  City  Hall  of  New  York,1 
gives  the  face  in  the  prime  of  life,  —  the  same  shrewd, 
kindly  expression,  but  more  positively  touched  with  that 
half  cynical  doubt  of  men  which  almost  inevitably  belongs 
to  those  in  great  places.  The  deep  wrinkles  of  the  old 
and  retired  ex-president  were  hardly  yet  incipient  in  the 
smooth,  prosperous,  almost  complacent  countenance  of 
the  governor.  In  the  earlier  picture  the  locks  flared 
outwards  from  the  face,  as  they  did  later ;  as  yet,  how 
ever,  they  were  dark  and  a  bit  curling.  His  form  was 
always  slender  and  erect,  but  hardly  reached  the  middle 
height,  so  that  to  his  political  enemies  it  was  endless 
delight  to  call  him  "  Little  Van." 

In  the  older  picture  one  sees  a  scrupulous  daintiness 
about  the  ruffled  shirt  and  immaculate  neckerchief ;  for 
Van  Buren  was  fond  of  the  elegance  of  life.  The  Whigs 
used  to  declare  him  an  aristocrat,  given  to  un-American, 
to  positively  British  splendor.  Very  certainly  he  never 
affected  contempt  for  the  gracious  and  stately  refinement 

1  An  engraving  of  this  portrait  accompanies  Holland's  biogra 
phy,  written  for  the  campaign  of  1836. 


884  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

suited  to  his  long  held  place  of  public  honor,  that  con 
tempt  which  a  silly  underrating  of  American  good  sense 
has  occasionally  commended  to  our  statesmen.  At  Lin- 
denwald,  among  books  and  guests  and  rural  cares,  he 
led  what  in  the  best  and  truest  sense  was  the  life  of  a 
country  gentleman,  not  set  like  an  urban  exotic  among 
the  farmers,  but  fond  of  his  neighbors  as  they  were  fond 
of  him,  and  unaffectedly  sharing  without  loss  of  distinc 
tion  or  elegance  their  thrifty  and  homely  cares.  When 
he  retired  to  this  home  he  was  able,  without  undignified 
or  humiliating  shifts,  to  live  in  ease  and  even  affluence. 
For  in  1841  his  fortune  of  perhaps  $200,000  was  a 
generous  one.  His  last  days  were  not,  like  those  of 
Jefferson  and  Monroe  and  Jackson,  embittered  by 
money  anxieties,  the  penalty  of  the  careless  profusion  the 
temptation  to  which,  felt  even  by  men  wise  in  the  affairs 
of  others,  is  often  greater  than  the  certain  danger  and 
unwisdom  of  its  indulgence.  But  no  suggestion  was 
breathed  against  his  pecuniary  integrity,  public  or  pri 
vate.  Nor  was  there  heard  of  him  any  story  of  wrong 
Or  oppression  or  ungenerous  dealing. 

Van  Buren's  extraordinary  command  of  himself  was 
apparent  in  his  manners.  They  are  finely  described 
from  intimate  acquaintance  by  William  Allen  Butler, 
the  son  of  Van  Buren's  long-time  friend,  in  his  charming 
and  appreciative  sketch  printed  just  after  Van  Buren's 
death.  They  had,  Mr.  Butler  said,  a  neatness  and  polish 
which  served  every  turn  of  domestic,  social,  and  public 
intercourse.  "  As  you  saw  him  once,  you  saw  him  al 
ways —  always  punctilious,  always  polite,  always  cheer 
ful,  always  self-possessed.  It  seemed  to  anyone  who 
studied  this  phase  of  his  character  as  if,  in  some  early 
moment  of  destiny,  his  whole  nature  had  been  bathed  in 


CHARACTER.  385 

a  cool,  clear,  and  unruffled  depth,  from  which  it  drew 
this  life-long  serenity  and  self -control."  An  accomplished 
English  traveler,  "  the  author  of  Cyril  Thornton,"  who 
saw  him  while  secretary  of  state,  and  before  he  had  been 
abroad,  said  that  he  had  more  of  "  the  manner  of  the 
world"  than  any  other  of  the  distinguished  men  at 
Washington ;  that  in  conversation  he  was  "  full  of  anec 
dote  and  vivacity."  Chevalier,  one  of  our  French  critics, 
in  his  letters  from  America  described  him  as  setting  up 
"  for  the  American  Talleyrand."  John  Quincy  Adams, 
as  has  been  said,  sourly  mistook  all  this,  and  even  the 
especial  courtesy  Van  Buren  paid  him  after  his  political 
downfall,  as  mere  proof  of  insincerity  ;  and  he  more  than 
once  compared  Van  Buren  to  Aaron  Burr,  a  comparison 
of  which  many  Democrats  were  fond  after  1848.  In  his 
better  natured  moments,  however,  Adams  saw  in  his  ad 
versary  a  resemblance  to  the  conciliatory  and  philosophic 
Madison.  For  his  "  extreme  caution  in  avoiding  and 
averting  personal  collisions,"  he  called  him  another  Sosie 
of  Moliere's  Amphitryon,  u  ami  de  tout  le  monde." 

Van  Buren's  skill  in  dealing  with  men  was  indeed 
extraordinary.  It  doubtless  came  from  this  temper  of 
amity,  and  from  an  inborn  genius  for  society  ;  but  it  had 
been  wonderfully  sharpened  in  the  unrivaled  school  of 
New  York's  early  politics.  When  he  was  minister  at 
London,  he  wrote  that  he  was  making  it  his  business  to 
be  cordial  with  prominent  men  on  both  sides ;  a  branch 
of  duty,  he  said,  in  which  he  was  not  at  home,  because 
he  had  all  his  life  been  "  wholly  on  one  side."  But  he 
was  jocosely  unjust  to  himself.  lie  was,  for  the  politics 
of  his  day,  abundantly  fair  to  his  adversaries.  Some 
times  indeed  he  saw  too  much  of  what  might  be  said  on 
the  other  side.  Had  he  seen  less,  he  would  sometimes 


386  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

have  been  briefer,  less  indulgent  in  formal  caution.  Nor 
did  he  fail  to  avoid  the  unnecessary  misery  caused  to 
many  public  men,  the  obstacles  needlessly  raised  in  their 
way,  by  personal  disputes,  or  by  letting  into  negotiations 
matters  of  controversy  irrelevant  to  the  thing  to  be  done. 
Patience  in  listening,  a  steady  and  singularly  acute  ob 
servance  of  the  real  end  he  sought,  and  a  quick,  keen 
reading  of  men,  saved  him  this  wearing  unhappiness  so 
widespread  in  public  life.  Once  he  thus  criticised  his 
friend  Cambreleng :  "  There  is  more  in  small  matters 
than  he  is  always  aware  of,  although  he  is  a  really  sen 
sible  and  useful  man."  In  this  maxim  of  lesser  things 
Van  Buren  was  carefully  practiced.  During  the  Jackson- 
Adams  campaign,  the  younger  Hamilton  was  about  send 
ing  to  some  important  person  an  account  of  the  general. 
Van  Buren  knowing  of  this  wrote  to  Hamilton,  and, 
after  signing  his  letter,  added  :  "  P.  S. — Does  the  old 
gentleman  have  prayers  in  his  own  house  ?  If  so,  men 
tion  it  modestly." 

His  self-command  was  not  stilted  or  unduly  precise  or 
correct.  He  was  very  human.  A  candidate  for  gover 
nor  of  New  York  would  to-day  hardly  write  to  another 
public  man,  however  friendly  to  him,  as  Van  Buren  in 
August  and  September,  1828,  wrote  to  Hamilton.  "  Bet 
on  Kentucky,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,"  he  said,  "jointly 
if  you  can,  or  any  two  of  them  ;  don't  forget  to  bet  all 
you  can."  But  this  was  the  fashion  of  the  day.1  ,  His 

1  The  mania  for  election  betting  among-  public  men  was  very 
curious.  In  the  letters  and  memoranda  printed  by  Mackenzie,  the 
bets  of  John  Van  Buren  and  Jesse  Hoyt  are  given  in  detail.  They 
ranged  from  $5,000  to  $50 ;  from  "3  cases  of  champagne"  or 
" 2  bales  of  cotton,"  to  "boots,  $7,"  or  "a  ham,  $3."  They 
were  made  with  the  younger  Alexander  Hamilton,  James  Watson 
Webb,  Moses  H.  Grinnell,  John  A.  King,  George  F.  Talman, 
Dudley  Selden,  and  other  notable  men  of  the  time. 


CHARACTER.  387 

life  was  entirely  free  from  the  charges  of  dissipation  or 
of  irregular  habits,  then  so  commonly,  and  often  truly, 
made  against  great  men.  This  very  correctness  was 
part  of  the  offense  he  gave  his  rivals  and  their  followers. 
It  would  hardly  be  accurate  to  describe  him,  even  in 
younger  years,  as  jovial  with  his  friends  ;  but  he  was 
perfectly  companionable.  Of  a  social  and  cheerful  tem 
per,  he  not  only  liked  the  decorous  gaiety  of  receptions 
and  public  entertainment,  but  was  delighted  and  delight 
ful  in  closer  and  easier  conversation  and  in  the  chat  of 
familiar  friends.  His  reminiscences  of  men  are  said  to 
have  been  full  of  the  charm  which  flows  from  a  strong 
natural  sense  of  humor,  and  a  correct  and  vivid  memory 
of  human  action  and  character. 

There  are  many  apocryphal  stories  of  Van  Buren's 
craft  or  cunning  or  selfishness  in  politics.  It  is  a  curi 
ous  appreciation  with  which  reputable  historians  have 
received  such  stories  from  irresponsible  or  anonymous 
sources ;  for  they  deserve  as  little  credence  as  those  told 
of  Lincoln's  frivolity  or  indecency.  To  them  all  may 
not  only  be  pleaded  the  absence  of  any  proof  deserving 
respect,  but  they  are  refuted  by  positive  proof,  such  as 
from  earliest  times  has  been  deemed  the  best  which  pri 
vate  character  can  in  its  own  behalf  offer  to  history. 
In  politics  Van  Buren  enjoyed  as  much  strong  and  con 
stant  friendship  as  he  encountered  strong  and  constant 
hatred.  Nothing  points  more  surely  to  the  essential 
soundness  of  life  and  the  generosity  of  a  public  man 
than  the  near  and  long-continued  friendship  of  other 
able,  upright,  and  honorably  ambitious  men.  It  was  an 
extraordinary  measure  in  which  Van  Buren  enjoyed 
friendship  of  this  quality.  With  all  the  light  upon  his 
character,  Jackson  was  too  shrewd  to  suffer  long  from  im- 


388  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

position.  His  intimacy  with  Van  Buren  for  twenty  years 
and  more  was  really  affectionate ;  his  admiration  for 
the  younger  statesman  was  profound.  The  explanation 
is  both  unnecessary  and  unworthy,  which  ascribes  to 
hatred  of  Clay  all  Jackson's  ardor  in  the  canvass  of 
1840  or  his  almost  pathetic  anxiety  for  Van  Buren 's 
nomination  in  1844.  Their  peculiar  and  continuous 
association  for  six  years  at  Washington  had  so  power 
fully  established  Van  Buren  in  his  love  and  respect, 
that  neither  distant  separation  nor  disease  nor  the  nearer 
intrigues  and  devices  of  rivals  could  abate  them.  Those 
who  were  especially  known  as  Van  Buren  men,  those 
who  not  only  stood  with  him  in  the  party  but  who  went 
with  him  out  of  it,  were  men  of  great  talents  and  of  the 
highest  character.  Butler's  career  closely  accompanied 
Van  Buren's.  Both  were  born  at  Kinderhook  ;  they 
were  together  in  Hudson,  in  Albany,  in  Washington  ; 
they  were  together  as  Bucktails,  as  Jacksonian  Demo 
crats,  as  Free-soil  men  ;  they  were  close  to  one  another 
from  Butler's  boyhood  until,  more  than  a  half-century 
later,  they  were  parted  by  death.  To  this  strong-headed 
and  sound-hearted  statesman,  we  are  told  by  William 
Allen  Butler,  in  a  fine  and  wellnigh  sufficient  eulogy, 
that  Van  Buren  was  the  object  of  an  affection  true  and 
steadfast,  faithful  through  good  report  and  evil  report, 
loyal  to  its  own  high  sense  of  duty  and  affection,  tender 
and  generous.  Benton,  liberal  and  sane  a  slaveholder 
though  he  was,  did  not  approve  the  Wilmot  proviso,  or 
join  the  Free-soil  revolt.  But  in  retirement  and  old 
age,  reviewing  his  "  Thirty  years,"  during  twenty  of 
which  he  and  Van  Buren  had,  spite  of  many  differences, 
remained  on  closely  intimate  terms,  he  showed  a  deep 
liking  for  the  man.  Silas  Wright,  Azariah  C.  Flagg, 


CHARACTER.  389 

and  John  A.  Dix,  all  strong  and  famous  characters  in 
the  public  life  of  New  York,  were  among  the  others 
of  those  steadily  faithful  in  loyal  and  unwavering  re 
gard  for  this  political  and  personal  chief.  Nor  were 
they  deceived.  Jackson  and  Butler,  Wright  and  Flagg 
and  Dix,  sturdy,  upright,  skillful,  experienced  men  of 
affairs,  were  not  held  in  true  and  lifelong  friendship 
and  admiration  by  the  insinuating  manners,  the  clever 
management,  the  selfish  and  timid  aims,  which  make 
the  Machiavellian  caricature  of  Van  Buren  so  often 
drawn.  No  American  in  public  life  has  shown  firmer 
and  longer  devotion  to  his  friends.  His  reputation  for 
statesmanship  must  doubtless  rest  upon  the  indisputable 
facts  of  his  career.  But  for  his  integrity  of  life,  for  his 
sincerity,  for  his  fidelity  to  those  obligations  of  political, 
party,  and  personal  friendship,  within  which  lies  so  much 
of  the  usefulness  as  well  as  of  the  singular  charm  of 
public  life,  his  relations  with  these  men  make  a  proof 
not  to  be  questioned,  and  surely  not  to  be  weakened  by 
the  malicious  or  unfathered  stories  of  political  warfare. 

For  the  absurdly  sinister  touch  which  his  political 
enemies  gave  to  his  character,  it  is  difficult  now  to  find 
any  just  reason.  It  may  be  that  the  cool  and  impertur 
bable  appearance  of  good-nature,  with  which  he  received 
the  savage  and  malevolent  attacks  so  continually  made 
upon  him,  to  many  seemed  so  impossible  to  be  real  as 
to  be  sheer  hypocrisy  ; 1  and  from  the  fancy  of  such  hy- 

1  One  of  the  latest  and  most  important  historians  of  the  time, 
after  saying  that  ' '  nothing  ruffled ' '  Van  Buren,  is  contented 
•with  a  different  explanation  from  mine.  Professor  Sumner  says 
that  "he  was  thick-skinned,  elastic,  and  tough;  he  did  not  win 
confidence  from  anybody."  But  within  another  sentence  or  two 
the  historian  adds,  as  if  effect  did  not  always  need  adequate 
cause,  that  "  as  president  he  showed  the  honorable  desire  to  have 


390  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

pocrisy  it  was  easy  for  the  imagination  to  infer  all  the 
arts  and  characteristics  of  deceit.  Doubtless  the  elabo 
rate  caution  of  Van  Buren's  political  papers  irritated 
impatient  and  angry  opponents.  They  found  them  full 
of  elaborate  and  subtle  reservations,  as  they  fancied, 
against  future  political  contingencies  ;  a  charge,  it  ought 
to  be  remembered,  which  is  continually  made  against  the 
ripest,  bravest,  and  greatest  character  in  English  politics 
of  to-day  or  of  the  century.  Van  Buren's  reasoning 
was  perfectly  clear,  and  his  style  highly  finished.  But 
he  had  not  the  sort  of  genius  which  in  a  few  phrases 
states  and  lights  up  a  political  problem.  The  complex 
ity  of  human  affairs,  the  danger  of  short  and  sweeping 
assertions,  pressed  upon  him  as  he  wrote  ;  and  the  ampli 
tude  of  his  arguments,  sometimes  tending  to  prolixity, 
seemed  timid  and  lawyer-like  to  those  who  disliked  his 
conclusions. 

Van  Buren  was  not,  however,  an  unpopular  man, 
except  as  toward  the  last  his  politics  were  unpopular  as 
politics  out  of  sympathy  with  those  of  either  of  the  great 
parties,  and  except  also  at  the  South,  where  he  was  soon 
suspected  and  afterwards  hated  as  an  anti-slavery  man. 
He  was  on  the  whole  a  strong  candidate  at  the  polls. 
In  his  own  state  and  at  the  northeast  his  strength  with 
the  people  grew  more  and  more  until  his  defeat  by  the 
slaveholders  in  1844.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  proof 
of  this  strength  was  the  canvass  of  1848,  when  in  New 
York  he  was  able  to  take  fully  half  of  his  party  with  him 
into  irregular  opposition,  a  feat  with  hardly  a  precedent 
in  our  political  history.  And  there  was  complete  reci 
procity.  Van  Buren  was  profoundly  democratic  in  his 

a  statesmanlike  and  high-toned  administration."  (Sumner's  Jack 
son,  p.  384.) 


HIS  POLITICAL   CREED. 


391 


convictions.  He  thoroughly,  honestly,  and  without  dema 
gogy  believed  in  the  common  people  and  in  their  com 
petence  to  deal  wisely  with  political  difficulties.  Even 
when  his  faith  was  tried  by  what  he  deemed  the  mis 
takes  of  popular  elections,  he  still  trusted  to  what  in 
a  famous  phrase  of  his  he  called  u  the  sober  second 
thought  of  the  people."  ' 

However  widely  the  student  of  history  may  differ 
from  the  politics  of  Van  Buren's  associates,  the  politics 
of  Benton,  Wright,  Butler,  and  Dix,  and  in  a  later  rank 
of  his  New  York  disciples,  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden  and 
Sanford  E.  Church,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  their 
political  purpose  was  at  the  least  as  long  and  steady  as 
their  friendship  for  Van  Buren.  Love  for  the  Union, 
a  belief  in  a  simple,  economical,  and  even  unheroic  gov 
ernment,  a  jealousy  of  taking  money  from  the  people, 
and  a  scrupulous  restriction  upon  the  use  of  public 
moneys  for  any  but  public  purposes,  a  strict  limitation 
of  federal  powers,  a  dislike  of  slavery  and  an  opposition 
to  its  extension,  —  these  made  up  one  of  the  great  and 
fruitful  political  creeds  of  America,  a  creed  which  had 
ardent  and  hopeful  apostles  a  half  century  ago,  and 
which,  save  in  the  articles  which  touched  slavery  and 
are  now  happily  obsolete,  will  doubtless  find  apostles  no 
less  ardent  and  hopeful  a  half  century  hence.  Each  of 
its  assertions  has  been  found  in  other  creeds  ;  but  the 
entire  creed  with  all  its  articles  made  the  peculiar  and 
powerful  faith  only  of  the  Van  Buren  men.  As  history 
gradually  sets  reputations  aright,  the  leader  of  these 

1  This  expression  was  not  original  with  Van  Buren,  as  has  been 
supposed.  It  was  used  by  Fisher  Ames  in  1788  ;  and  Bartlett's 
Quotations  also  gives  a  still  earlier  use  of  part  of  it  by  Matthew 
Henry  in  1710. 


392  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

men  must  justly  wear  the  laurel  of  a  statesman  who, 
apart  from  his  personal  and  party  relations  and  ambi 
tions,  has  stood  clearly  for  a  powerful  and  largely  tri 
umphant  cause. 

No  vague,  no  thoughtless  rush  of  popular  sentiment 
touched  or  shook  this  faith  of  Van  Buren.  Had  there 
been  indeed  a  readier  emphasis  about  him,  a  heartier 
and  quicker  sympathy  with  the  temper  of  the  day,  he 
would  perhaps  have  aroused  a  popular  enthusiasm,  he 
might  perhaps  have  been  the  hero  which  in  fact  he 
never  was.  But  his  intellectual  perceptions  did  not 
permit  the  subtle  self-deceit,  the  enthusiastic  surrender 
to  current  sentiment,  to  which  the  striking  figures  that 
delight  the  masses  of  men  are  so  apt  to  yield.  Van 
Buren  was  steadfast  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  save 
when  the  war  threats  of  slavery  alarmed  his  old  age  and 
the  sober  second  thought  of  a  really  patient  and  resolute 
people  seemed  a  long  time  coming.  Two  years  before 
his  death  Jefferson  wrote  to  Van  Buren  an  elaborate 
sketch  of  his  relations  with  Hamilton  and  of  our  first 
party  division.  Two  years  before  his  own  death  Van 
Buren  was  finishing  a  history  of  the  same  political  divi 
sion  written  upon  the  theory  and  in  the  tone  running 
through  Jefferson's  writings.  It  was  composed  by  Van 
Buren  in  the  very  same  temper  in  which  he  had  respect 
fully  read  the  weighty  epistle  from  the  great  apostle,  of 
Democracy.  Between  the  ending  life  at  Monticello  and 
that  at  Lindenwald,  the  political  faith  of  the  older  man 
had  been  steadily  followed  by  the  younger. 

The  rise  of  the  "  spoils  "  system,  and  the  late  coming, 
but  steadily  increasing  perception  of  its  corruptions  and 
dangers,  have  seriously  and  justly  dimmed  Van  Buren's 
fame.  But  history  should  be  not  less  indulgent  to  him 


HIS   CHARACTER.  393 

than  to  other  great  Americans.  The  practical  politics 
which  he  first  knew  had  been  saturated  with  the  abuse. 
He  did  no.  more  than  adopt  accustomed  means  of  politi 
cal  warfare.  Neither  he  nor  other  men  of  his  time  per 
ceived  the  kind  of  evil  which  political  proscription  of 
men  in  unpolitical  places  must  yield.  They  saw  the 
undoubted  rightfulness  of  shattering  the  ancient  idea 
that  in  offices  there  was  a  property  right.  They  saw 
but  too  clearly  the  apparent  help  which  the  powerful 
love  of  holding  office  brings  to  any  political  cause,  and 
which  has  been  used  by  every  great  minister  of  state 
the  world  over.  Van  Buren  had,  however,  no  love  of 
patronage  in  itself.  The  use  of  a  party  as  a  mere 
agency  to  distribute  offices  would  have  seemed  to  him 
contemptible.  In  neither  of  the  great  executive  places 
which  he  held,  as  governor,  secretary  of  state,  or  presi 
dent,  did  he  put  into  an  extreme  practice  the  prescrip 
tive  rules  which  were  far  more  rigorously  adopted  about 
him.  To  his  personal  temper  not  less  than  to  his  con 
ceptions  of  public  duty  the  inevitable  meanness  and 
wrong  of  the  system  were  distasteful. 

Chief  among  the  elements  of  Van  Buren's  public 
character  ought  to  be  ranked  his  moral  courage  and  the 
explicitness  of  his  political  utterances,  —  the  two  qualities 
which,  curiously  enough,  were  most  angrily  denied  him 
by  his  enemies.  His  well-known  Shocco  Springs  letter 
of  1832  on  the  tariff  was  indeed  lacking  in  these  quali 
ties  ;  but  he  was  then  not  chiefly  interested.  There  was 
only  a  secondary  responsibility  upon  him.  But  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  no  American  in  responsible  and 
public  station,  since  the  days  when  Washington  returned 
from  his  walk  among  the  miserable  huts  at  Valley  Forge 
to  write  to  the  Continental  Congress,  or  to  face  the  petty 


394  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

imbecilities  of  the  jealous  colonists,  has  shown  so  com 
plete  a  political  courage  as  that  with  which  Van  Buren 
faced  the  crisis  of  1837,  or  in  which  he  wrote  his  famous 
Texas  letter.  Nor  did  any  American,  stirred  with  am 
bition,  conscious  of  great  powers,  as  was  this  captain  of 
politicians,  and  bringing  all  his  political  fortunes,  as  he 
must  do,  to  the  risks  of  universal  suffrage,  ever  meet 
living  issues  dangerously  dividing  men  ready  to  vote  for 
him  if  he  would  but  remain  quiet,  with  clearer  or  more 
decided  answers  than  did  Van  Buren  in  his  Sherrod 
Williams  letter  of  1836  and  in  most  of  his  chief  public 
utterances  from  that  year  until  1844.  The  courtesies 
of  his  manner,  his  failure  in  trenchant  brevity,  and  even 
the  almost  complete  absence  of  invective  or  extravagance 
from  his  papers  or  speeches,  have  obscured  these  capital 
virtues  of  his  character.  He  saw  too  many  dangers ; 
and  he  sometimes  made  it  too  clear  that  he  saw  them. 
But  upon  legitimate  issues  he  was  among  the  least  timid 
and  the  most  explicit  of  great  Americans.  No  presi 
dent  of  ours  has  in  office  been  more  courageous  or  more 
direct. 

It  is  perhaps  an  interesting,  it  is  at  least  a  harmless 
speculation,  to  look  for  Van  Buren's  place  of  honor  in 
the  varied  succession  of  men  who  have  reached  the  first 
office,  though  not  always  the  first  place,  in  American 
public  life.  Every  student  will  be  powerfully,  even 
when  unconsciously,  influenced  in  this  judgment  by  the 
measure  of  strength  or  beneficence  he  accords  to  differ 
ent  political  tendencies.  With  this  warning  the  present 
writer  will,  however,  venture  upon  an  opinion. 

Van  Buren  very  clearly  does  not  belong  among  the 
mediocrities  or  accidents  of  the  White  House,  —  among 
Monroe,  Harrison,  Tyler,  Polk,  Taylor,  Fillmore,  and 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  395 

Pierce,  not  to  meddle  with  the  years  since  the  civil  war 
whose  party  disputes  are  still  part  of  contemporary 
politics.  Van  Buren  reached  the  presidency  by  politi 
cal  abilities  and  public  services  of  the  first  order,  as  the 
most  distinguished  active  member  of  his  party,  and  with 
a  universal  popular  recognition  for  years  before  his 
promotion  that  he  was  among  the  three  or  four  Ameri 
cans  from  whom  a  president  would  be  naturally  chosen. 
Buchanan's  experience  in  public  life  was  perhaps  as 
great  as  Van  Buren's,  and  his  political  skill  and  distinc 
tion  made  his  accession  to  the  presidency  by  no  means 
unworthy.  But  he  never  led,  he  never  stood  for  a 
cause  ;  he  never  led  men ;  he  was  never  chief  in  his 
party ;  and  in  his  great  office  he  sank  with  timidity  be 
fore  the  slaveholding  aggressors,  as  they  strove  with  ven 
geance  to  suppress  freedom  in  Kansas,  and  before  the 
menaces  and  open  plunderings  of  disunion.  Van  Buren 
showed  no  such  timidity  in  a  place  of  equal  difficulty. 

Jackson  stands  in  a  rank  by  himself.  He  had  a 
stronger  and  more  vivid  personality  than  Van  Buren. 
But  useful  as  he  was  to  the  creation  of  a  powerful  senti 
ment  for  union  and  of  a  hostility  to  the  schemes  of  a 
paternal  government,  it  is  clear  that  in  those  qualities  of 
steady  wisdom,  foresight,  patience,  which  of  right  be 
long  to  the  chief  magistracy  of  a  republic,  he  was  far  in 
ferior  to  his  less  picturesque  and  less  forceful  successor. 
The  first  Adams,  a  man  of  very  superior  parts,  com 
petent  and  singularly  patriotic,  was  deep  in  too  many 
personal  collisions  within  and  without  his  party,  and  his 
presidency  incurred  too  complete  and  lasting,  and  it  must 
be  added,  too  just  a  popular  condemnation,  to  permit  it 
high  rank,  though  very  certainly  he  belonged  among 
neither  the  mediocrities  nor  the  accidents  of  the  White 
House. 


396  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

If  to  the  highest  rank  of  American  presidents  be  as 
signed  Washington,  and  if  after  him  in  it  come  Jefferson 
and  perhaps  Lincoln  (though  more  than  a  quarter  %f  a 
century  must  go  to  make  the  enduring  measure  of  his 
fame),  the  second  rank  would  seem  to  include  Madison, 
the  younger  Adams,  and  Van  Biiren.  Between  the  first 
and  the  last  of  these,  the  second  of  them,  as  has  been 
said,  saw  much  resemblance.  But  if  Madison  had  a 
mellower  mind,  more  obedient  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
time  and  of  a  wider  scholarship,  Van  Buren  had  a  firmer 
and  more  direct  courage,  a  steadier  loyalty  to  his  politi 
cal  creed,  and  far  greater  resolution  and  efficiency  in  the 
performance  of  executive  duties.  If  one  were  to  imitate 
Plutarch  in  behalf  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Van  Bu 
ren,  he  would  need  largely  to  compare  their  rival  politi 
cal  creeds.  But  leaving  these,  it  will  not  be  unjust  to 
say  that  in  virile  and  indomitable  continuance  of  moral 
purpose  after  official  power  had  let  go  its  trammels,  and 
when  the  harassments  and  feebleness  of  age  were  inex 
orable,  and  though  the  heavens  were  to  fall,  the  younger 
Adams  was  the  greater  ;  that  in  executive  success  they 
were  closely  together  in  a  high  rank  ;  but  that  in  skill 
and  power  of  political  leadership,  in  breadth  of  political 
purpose,  in  freedom  from  political  vagaries,  in  personal 
generosity  and  political  loyalty,  Van  Buren  was  easily 
the  greater  man. 

Van  Buren  could  not  approach  the  massive  and  for 
cible  eloquence  of  Webster,  or  the  more  captivating 
though  fleeting  speech  of  Clay,  or  the  delightful  warmth 
of  the  latter's  leadership,  or  the  strength  and  glory  which 
their  very  persons  and  careers  gave  to  American  nation 
ality.  But  in  the  persistent  and  fruitful  adherence  to  a 
political  creed  fitted  to  the  time  and  to  the  genius  of  the 


HIS  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  397 

American  people,  in  that  noble  art  which  gathers  and 
binds  to  one  another  and  to  a  creed  the  elements  of  a 
political  party,  the  art  which  disciplines  and  guides  the 
party,  when  formed,  to  clear  and  definite  purposes,  with 
out  wavering  and  without  weakness  or  demagogy, 
Van  Buren  was  a  greater  master  than  either  of  those 
men,  in  many  things  more  interesting  as  they  were.  In 
this  exalted  art  of  the  politician,  this  consummate  art 
of  the  statesman,  Van  Buren  was  close  to  the  greatest 
of  American  party  leaders,  close  to  Jefferson  and  to 
Hamilton. 

In  his  very  last  years  the  stir  and  rumbling  of  war 
left  Van  Buren  in  quiet  recollection  and  anxious  loyalty 
at  Lindenwald.  As  his  growing  illness  now  and  then 
spared  him  moments  of  ease,  his  mind  must  sometimes 
have  turned  back  to  the  steps  of  his  career,  senator  of 
his  state,  senator  of  the  United  States,  governor,  first 
cabinet  minister,  foreign  envoy,  vice-president,  and  presi 
dent.  There  must  again  have  sounded  in  his  ears  the 
hardly  remembered  jargon  of  Lewisites  and  Burrites, 
Clintonians  and  Livingstonians,  Republicans  and  Feder 
alists,  Bucktails  and  Jacksonians  and  National  Republi 
cans,  Democrats  and  Whigs,  Loco-focos  and  Conserva 
tives,  Barnburners  and  Hunkers.  There  must  rapidly 
though  dimly  have  shifted  before  him  the  long  series  of 
his  struggles,  —  struggles  over  the  second  war  with 
England,  over  internal  improvements,  the  Bank,  nullifi 
cation,  the  divorce  of  bank  and  state,  the  resistance  to 
slavery  extension.  Through  them  all  there  had  run, 
and  this  at  least  his  memory  clearly  recalled,  the  one 
strong  faith  of  his  politics  and  statesmanship.  In  all  his 
labors  of  office,  in  all  his  multifarious  strifes,  he  never 
faltered  in  upholding  the  Union.  But  not  less  firmly 


398  MARTIN  VAN  BUREN. 

would  this  true  disciple  of  Jefferson  restrain  the  activi 
ties  of  the  federal  government.  Whatever  wisdom, 
whatever  integrity  of  purpose  might  belong  to  ministers 
and  legislators  at  Washington,  —  though  the  strength  of 
the  United  States  might  be  theirs,  and  though  they  were 
panoplied  in  the  august  prestige  rightly  ascribed  by 
American  patriotism  to  that  sovereign  title  of  our  Na 
tion,  —  still  Van  Buren  was  resolute  that  they  should 
not  do  for  the  people  what  the  states  or  the  people  them 
selves  could  do  as  well.  To  his  eyes  there  was  clear  and 
undimmed  from  the  beginning  to  the  close  of  his  career, 
the  idea  of  government  as  an  instrument  of  useful  pub 
lic  service,  and  not  as  an  object  of  superstitious  venera 
tion,  the  idea  but  two  years  after  his  death  clothed  with 
memorable  words  by  a  master  in  brief  speech,  the  dem 
ocratic  idea  of  a  "  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people." 


INDEX. 


Abolition.  See  Slavery ;  Anti-Slavery 
Literature  ;  District  of  Columbia. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  365,  366. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  favors  Missouri 
Compromise,  79  ;  opinions  of  Van 
Buren,  91,  135,  338,  339,  385 ;  nat 
ural  choice  of  New  York  Republi 
cans  for  presidency,  93 ;  chosen 
president,  98,  99  ;  initiates  modern 
party  divisions,  102-105,  141 ;  oppo 
sition  to,  136-138  ;  opinions  on  crisis 
of  1837,  '287  ;  votes  against  stoppage 
of  surplus  distribution,  289  ;  in  New 
Jersey  contest  in  House,  321,  322  ; 
as  president  pressed  claims  tor  es 
caped  slaves,  326 ;  character,  396. 

Alamo,  defense  of,  306. 

Anti-Masons,  209,  210. 

Anti  -  Slavery  literature,  circulation 
of,  235-238. 

Auckland,  Lord,  195. 

Bancroft,  George,  310,  348. 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  Jackson's 
hostility  to,  173 ;  removal  of  depos 
its  from,  213-217,  253,  254;  Van 
Buren  pronounces  against  its  ree's- 
tablishmenr,  228  ;  resolution  of  Con 
gress  against  reestablishment,  291  ; 
resists  resumption,  298;  final  fall, 
299. 

Banks,  144,  145,  253-257  ;  suspension 
of,  274  ;  resumption  of,  292, 293,298. 

Barnburners,  354-363. 

Barry,  William  T.,  152,  153,  170. 

Ball,  John,  289. 

Bennett,  James  Gordon,  194. 

Benton,  Thomas  H.,  80,  82,  90,  117, 
180,  236,  353,  357,  373,  388. 

Berrien,  John  M.,  152,  153,  170. 

Betting  among  public  men,  386,  w., 
387. 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  273. 

Bid  well,  Marshall  S.,  301. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  1G3,  1G4,  289. 

Branch,  John,  152,  153,  170. 


British  Colonial  Trade,  121,  185-190. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  354. 
Buchanan,  James,  336,  373,  395. 
Bucktails,  56,  94. 
Burr,  Aaron,  15,  24,  36,  37. 
Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  17,  95,  218,  243, 
336,  349,  355,  363,  388,  389. 

Cabinet,  Van  Buren's,  243,  336,  337. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  80,  153;  opposes 
Van  Buren's  appointment  in  Jack 
son's  cabinet,  154  ;  feud  with  Jack- 
sou,  157-160  ;  toast  on  Jefferson's 
birthday,  160 ;  opposes  Van  Bu 
ren's  confirmation  as  minister  to 
England,  200 ;  opposes  Van  Buren's 
election  to  presidency,  223,  237  ;  re 
joins  Democratic  party,  291 ;  en 
counter  with  Clay,  296. 

Cambreleng,  Churchill  C.,  134,  358, 
386. 

Canadian  insurrection,  300-306. 

"Caroline,"  seizure  and  burning  of 
steamer,  303. 

Cass,  Lewis,  170. 

Caucus  of  1824,  97. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  365. 

Cherokees,  173. 

Classification  bill,  52. 

Clay,  Henry,  80  ;  coalition  with  Ad 
ams,  98,  99  ;  promotes  Panama  mis 
sion,  104  ;  opposition  to  his  confir 
mation  as  secretary  of  state,  105, 
112 ;  promotes  party  division,  136  ; 
opposes  Van  Buren's  confirmation 
as  minister  to  England,  197-199; 
denunciation  of  removal  of  deposits, 
216;  on  bill  against  circulation  of 
abolition  literature,  236  ;  advocates 
liberal  appropriations,  256,  and  dis 
tribution  of  surplus,  257,  258  ;  op 
poses  postponement  of  distribution, 

289,  and   issue   of  treasury    notes, 

290,  291 ;  encounter  with   Calhoun, 
296 ;     opposition     to     independent 
treasury,  296  ;  opposes  preemption 


400 


INDEX. 


by  settlers,  306 ;    in  campaign  of 

1840,  327,  329,  330  ;  estimate  of  Van 

Bureii,  339  ;  deieated  in  1844,  352  ; 

Texas  letter,  353,  372,  373. 
Clinton,  De   Witt,  41,  43,  49,  50,  54, 

56,  64,  93,  94,  97,  126. 
Clinton,  George,  34. 
Clintouians,  37. 
Cobb,  Thomas  W.,  92. 
Colonial  trade,  121,  185-190. 
"  Comet,"  case  of  the  brig,  196. 
Constitutional  convention  of  1821,  65- 

73. 
Council  of  appointment,  38,  40-42,  68, 

69. 

Council  of  revision,  70,  71. 
Court  for  correction  of  errors,  19. 
Crawford,  William  H.,  80,  81,  88,  90, 

91,  97,  118,  158. 
Crisis  of  1837,  242-277,  292, 293  ;  crisis 

returns  in  1839,  317-319. 
Crockett,  Davy,  219,  306. 
Croswell,  Edwin,  95. 
Cushing,  Caleb,  287,  288. 

Dallas,  George  M.,  351. 

Democratic  conventions  :  in  1832,  202- 
205 ;  in  1836,  220-222  ;  in  1840,  324, 
325  ;  in  1844,  345,  348-351  ;  at  Syra 
cuse  in  1847,  357. 

Democratic  party,  132,  136-138,  172. 

Dickerson,  Mahlon,  110,  243. 

Dickinson,  Daniel  S.,  349,  355,  356, 
360,  373. 

District  of  Columbia,  abolition  of  slav 
ery  in,  233-235,  244,  326. 

Dix,  John  A.,  95,  355,  367,  389. 

Dodge,  Henry,  364,  365. 

Dred  Scott  decision,  376. 

Dudley,  Charles  E.,  95. 

Durham,  Earl  of,  304,  305. 

Eaton,  John  H.,  152,  153,  170. 

Eaton,  Mrs.,  episode  of,  154-157. 

Edmonds,  John  W.,  354. 

Elections :  in  1824,  90-98 ;  in  1828, 
131-141 ;  in  1832,  211-213 ;  in  1836, 
223-225,  238-240  ;  in  1837,  293 ;  in 
1838,  310,  311  ;  in  1839,  316,  317  ;  in 
1840,  323-335  ;  in  1844,  352,  353;  in 
1848,  368,  369. 

Electors,  presidential,  choice  of,  in 
New  York,  94. 

Equal  Rights  party,  293-295. 

Era  of  good  feeling,  75. 

Erie  Canal,  55. 

Expunging  resolution,  229. 

Federalists,  32. 

Field,  David  Dudley,  354,  357. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  372,  373,  394. 


Flagg,  Azariah  C.,  95,  355,  388,  389. 
Florida  war,  second,  312-314. 
Forrest,  Edwin,  309. 
Forsyth,  John,  218,  243. 
Free-soil  convention  at  Buffalo,  365, 
366. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  97. 
Garland,  Hugh  A.,  320-322. 
Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  365. 
Giles,  William  B.,  132. 
Gilpiu,  Henry  D.,  336. 
Granger,  Francis,  223. 
Greeley,  Horace,  368. 
"  Green  bag  "  message,  64. 
Green,  Duff,  163. 
Grundy,  Felix,  336. 

Hale,  John  P.,  375. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  39. 
Hamilton,  James  A.,  151, 154, 175, 386. 
Harrison,   William  Henry,   222,   323, 

326,  331,  343,  394. 
Hayne,  Robert  Y.,  84,  85,  86,  105, 108, 

123,  127,  160,  197. 
Head,  Sir  Francis  B.,  302,  304. 
"  High-minded  "  Federalists,  62. 
Hill,  Isaac,  164. 

Hoyt,  Jesse,  27, 162, 177,  179,  312,313. 
Hoyt,  Lorenzo,  178. 
Hunkers,  354. 
Hunter,  Robert  M.  T.,  322. 

Imprisonment  for  debt,  22,  84,  99. 
Inauguration   and  inaugural  of    Van 

Buren,  242-245. 
Independent   treasury,  282-289,   296- 

298,  322,  323. 
Inflammatory   literature,    circulation 

of,  235-238. 

Ingham,  Samuel  D.,  152,  153,  170. 
Internal  improvements,    81-84,    100, 

103,  104,  112,  113,  121,  172,  173. 
Irving,  Washington,  192-194,  309,  310. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  53 ;  urges  Monroe 
to  exterminate  party  spirit,  76,  80  ; 
course  on  tariff,  84,  88,  90, 101,  105, 
112,  174;  course  on  internal  im 
provements,  132  ;  elected  president, 
143;  feud  with  Calhoun,  157-160, 
163 ;  favors  Van  Buren  as  his  suc 
cessor,  161,  162,  168 ;  sends  strong 
Union  letter  to  Charleston,  169; 
political  opinions,  133,  171 ;  contest 
with  U.  S.  Bank,  173,  213-217; 
opinions  on  removals,  182 ;  reply  to 
New  York  Democrats  on  Van 
Bnren's  rejection,  201  ;  reelection, 
212,  213 ;  nullification  proclamation, 
213;  leaves  Washington,  242;  Van 


INDF:X. 


401 


Buren's  tribute  to,  245 ;  aids  Van 
Buren  in  18-40,  331 ;  letter  on  Texas, 
345,  346  ;  supports  Van  Buren's  re- 
nomination,  348,  351  ;  death,  355 ; 
386,  387, 388, 389  ;  his  character,  395. 

Jay,  John,  41. 

Jaiferson's  birthday  celebration  in 
1830,  160. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  influence  on  Van 
Buren,  3,  10,  11,  397,  398  ;  his  cre 
ative  work  in  American  politics, 
3-10  ;  letter  to  Giles,  132  ;  letter  to 
Van  Buren,  391,  396. 

Johnson,  Richard  M.,  85,  222. 

Judges,  political  power  with,  71,  72  ; 
Van  Buren's  opinions  of,  114-117. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  376. 

Kendall,  Amos,  163,  170,  178,  235,  236, 

243,  336. 

Kent,  James,  25,  37,  70. 
King,  Rufus,  58-61,  80,  84,  86,  89,  99. 
King,  Preston,  363. 
"  Kitchen  cabinet,"  164. 
Knower,  Benjamin,  95. 
Kremer,  George,  221. 

Land  bill,  225. 

Land-owners  in  America  and  England, 

28,  29. 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  275. 
Lawyers    in   America    and   England, 

28,  29. 

Legal  profession  in  America,  16,  28. 
L3ggett,  William,  232,  235. 
Lewisites,  37. 
Lewis,  Morgan,  35,  37. 
Lewis,  William  B.,  158,  164. 
Lindenwald,  340. 
Livingston,  Brockholst,  35,  37. 
Livingston,  Edward,  35,  165,  166,  170, 

213. 

Livingston,  Robert  R.,  34. 
Livingston  family,  34. 
Livingstonians,  37. 
Loco-focos,  293-295. 

Mackenzie,  William  L.,  279,  n.  :  302, 

303,  305. 

Madison,  James,  396. 
Manners,  American,  9. 
Manning,  Daniel,  96. 
Marcy,  William  L.,  58,  95,  199,  25S, 

355,356,373. 
McLane,   Louis,    170,   188,   189,   191, 

218. 

McLean,  John,  152,  153,  177. 
Medcef  Eden  litigation,  24. 
Mexican  war,  354. 
Mexico,  claims  against,  296,  309. 
Missouri  compromise,  62,  77,  79,  376. 


Monroe,  James.  75,  76,  81,  82,  158, 

394. 
Morton,  Marcus,  349. 

Napoleon,  Louis,  311. 

Navy  Island,  seizure  of,  303. 

New    Jersey,    disputed    election    of 

representatives  from,  320,  322. 
Newspapers,  political  importance  of, 

163,  164. 

Niles,  John  M.,  337. 
Northeast  boundary  question,  295,  315. 
Nullification,  157,  160,  169,  213. 

Office,  property  in,  46. 
Olcott,  Thomas  W.,  95. 
Osceola,  314. 

Panama  mission,  105,  112. 

Paper  money  system,  245. 

Parties  reestablished,  102,  136,  172. 

Patronage,  Benton's  report  on,  117- 
119;  Van  Buren's  use  of,  as  gov 
ernor,  148,  as  secretary  of  state, 
182,  183. 

Paulding,  James  K.,  309-311. 

People's  party,  93,  94. 

"  Peter  Allen  "  legislature,  54,  55. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  362,  375,  395. 

Poinsett,  Joel  R.,  243. 

Politics,  American,  at  beginning  of 
Van  Buren's  career,  3-11. 

Politics  of  New  York,  32-57  ;  family 
influence  in,  36  ;  in  1824,  92. 

Polk,  James  K.,  289, 351, 352,  356,  394. 

Preston,  William  C.,  329. 

Proscription  for  political  opinion.  See 
"Spoils  System." 

Quids,  37. 

Regency,  Albany,  95,  96. 

Removals  from  office.      See  "  Spoils 

System." 

Removal  of  deposits,  213-217,  253-255. 
Richmond,  Dean,  96. 
Riot  in  New  York  in  1837,  270. 
Rives,  William  C.,  222,  297,  329. 
Rochester,  William  B.,  126. 
Rotation  in  office,  46.      See   "  Spoils 

System." 
Rush,  Richard,  137. 

"Safety  Fund"  system  of  banking, 

145. 

Sanford,  Nathan,  64,  65. 
Scott,  Winfield  S.,  304,  375. 
Seminole  war,  313-315. 
Senate,  federal,  from  1821  to  1828, 127. 
Seward,   William  H.,   101,   142,   258, 

368,  373. 


402 


INDEX. 


Seymour,  Horatio,  96. 

Sherrod  Williams'  letter,  226-229. 

Shocco  Springs  letter,  208,  393. 

Slaver^,  American  opinion  of,  at  be 
ginning  of  Van  Buren's  senatorship, 
77,  79;  Van  Buren's  views  on,  79, 
80  ;  rise  of  abolition  agitation,  230- 
234 ;  in  District  of  Columbia,  233- 
235 ;  circulation  of  abolition  litera 
ture,  235-238 ;    first  mentioned    by 
Van  Buren  in  a  presidential  inaugu 
ral,  244 ;   with  reference  to  Texas, 
308, 309  ;  in  Democratic  platform  of 
1840,    324 ;    petitions    against,   325,  ! 
320  ;  from  Missouri  Compromise  to  I 
Texas  agitation,  344 ;   becomes  the  j 
chief  issue,  353 ;    in  territories  ac-  | 
quired  from  Mexico,  357. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  366. 

Soft  Hunkers,  356. 

Songs  in  campaign  of  1840,  332,  333. 

Southwick,  Solomon,  142. 

Specie  circular,  260,  261,  267. 

Spencer,  Ambrose,  37,  41,  43. 

Spencer,  John  C.,  149. 

"  Spoils  System,"  rise  of,  in  New 
York,  38^8  ;  Van  Buren's  responsi 
bility  for,  in  national  politics,  152, 
177-183,  199 ;  in  campaign  of  1840, 
331,  392,  393. 

Stevenson,  Andrew,  221. 

Sub-treasury  bill.  See  Independent 
Treasury. 

Suffrage,  extension  of,  in  New  York, 
65-68. 

Sumner,  Charles,  369. 

Sumner,  William  G.,  his  estimate  of 
Van  Buren,  389. 

Surplus  distribution,  227,  228,  257- 
259,  270,  289. 

Swartwout,  Samuel,  177,  312,  313. 

Talcott,  Samuel  A.,  95. 

Tallmadge,  Nathaniel  P.,  297. 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  218. 

Tariff  question,  in  1824, 84-89 ;  in  1826- 
1827, 120  ;  "  tariff  of  abominations," 
122, 123 ;  change  in  views  of  Jack- 
sonian  democracy  on,  174, 175 ;  Van 
Buren's  views  on,  in  1832,  208,  209 ; 
in  1832,  211. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  367,  394. 

Tenure  of  office,  law  of,  1820, 118, 119. 

Texas,  296,  307,  308,  353. 

Thompson,  Smith,  35,  37,  142. 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  11,  96,  355,  363. 

Tompkins,  Daniel  D.,  37,  38,  57,  65. 

Treasury  notes,  issue  of  $10,000,000  of, 
289,  290. 

Two-thirds  rule,  204,  349,  350. 

Tyler,  John,  223,  323,  343,  344,  394. 


Van  Alen,  James  I.,  15. 

Van  Buren,  Abraham,  12. 

Van  Buren,  Abraham,  the  younger, 
338. 

Van  Buren,  John,  1,  358,  363,  371. 

Van  Buren,  Lawrence,  358. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  personal  appear 
ance,  1,  383  ;  popular  judgment  of, 
in  later  years,  2,  3  ;  descent  and 
early  home,  12,  13 ;  birth,  13 ;  edu 
cation,  13,  14 ;  law-student,  14,  15  ; 
in  New  York  city,  meets  Burr,  15 ; 
admitted  as  attorney,  15;  profes 
sional  career,  16-31 ;  pecuniary  suc 
cess,  16,  26,  384  ;  rivalry  with  Elisha 
Williams,  17 ;  admitted  as  counsel 
lor,  18  ;  marriage,  18  ;  surrogate,  18, 
19,  38 ;  removes  to  Hudson,  19 ; 
member  of  Court  of  Errors,  19  ;  at 
torney-general,  20;  removes  to  Al 
bany,  20 ;  opinion  in  case  of  "  es 
cape,"  and  hostility  to  imprisonment 
for  debt,  21-23  ;  counsel  in  Medcef- 
Eden  case,  24;  attacks  Chancellor 
Kent's  opinion,  25 ;  professional 
ability,  27 ;  death  of  Mrs.  Van  Bu 
ren,  31 ;  entrance  into  politics,  33  ; 
participation  in  "spoils  system," 
45,  49 ;  elected  state  senator,  44 ; 
reflected  state  senator,  49 ;  sup 
ports  Clinton  for  presidency,  49; 
opinions  and  services  in  war  with 
England,  50-53;  political  relations 
with  Clinton  dissolved,  50-54;  at 
torney-general,  53 ;  regent  of  the 
University,  55  ;  votes  for  construc 
tion  of  Erie  Canal,  55 ;  removed  from 
attorney-generalship,  57  ;  aids  Gov 
ernor  Tompkins,  57  ;  promotes  Ru- 
fus  King's  election,  58-61 ;  votes  in 
1820  against  slavery  extension,  63 ; 
presidential  election,  63  ;  asks  for 
removals  of  postmasters,  63,  64; 
chosen  United  States  senator,  64 ; 
constitutional  convention,  65-74 ; 
his  "non-committalism,"  66,  129; 
discussions  with  Chancellor  Kent, 
70;  views  on  slavery,  79,  80,  100, 
112,  113  ;  opposition  to  internal  im 
provements  by  federal  government, 
82,  83 ;  protectionist  in  1824,  84-89  ; 
urges  constitutional  amendment  as 
to  election  of  president,  89,  90, 113 ; 
supports  Crawford,  90,  97  ;  inclina 
tion  at  first  to  Adams,  91 ;  nomina 
tion  by  Georgia  for  vice-presidency, 
92;  opposition  leader  in  Congress, 
100,  104,  105,  113,  114 ;  treatment  of 
Adams's  administration,  105;  op 
poses  Panama  mission,  107-110 ;  pro 
poses  constitutional  amendment  as 


INDEX. 


403 


to     internal     improvements,    112 ; 
chairman    of   judiciary   committee, 
114 ;  opinions  of    judges,  114-117  ; 
receives  votes  for  president  pro  tern. 
of  senate,  117  ;  participates  in  Ben- 
ton's    report    on     patronage,    117  ; 
course  upon  the  tariff,  120, 208,  209 ; 
votes  for  "  tariff  of  abominations," 
122 ;  speech  on  power  of  the  vice- 
president,  123-125;  reflected  sena 
tor,  125 ;  speech  on  De  Witt  Clin 
ton's  death,  126  ;  as  a  parliamentary 
speaker,   128-130 ;   promotes  union 
of  Crawford  and  Jackson  support 
ers,   134 ;  southern  trip,    135  ;  gov 
ernor  of  New  York,  142-150;   his 
gubernatorial  patronage,  148,  149  ; 
secretary  of  state,  151 ;  share  in  the 
Eaton  episode,  15(5, 157  ;  rivalry  with 
Calhoun,   157-100;  toast  at   Jeffer 
son's  birthday  celebration,  1GO  ;  can 
didate    for  succession  to  Jackson, 
1G1  ;  opinion  of  Jackson,  1G2  ;  rela 
tions  with  newspapers,  1G3,  164  ;  re 
signs  from  the  cabinet,  166-168  ;  per 
sonal  relations  with  Jackson,  175, 
176  ;  opinions  on  removals,  178, 182, 
183  ;  foreign  negotiations,  184-189  ; 
minister  to  England,  191-197  ;    Ir- 
ving's  opinion  of,  193 ;  rejection  of, 
by  the   Senate,   195,   197-202 ;    de 
spatches  from  London,  196,  197  ;  re 
turns  to  New  York,  197  ;  nominated 
for  vice-president,  204  ;  accepts  nom 
ination,  206 ;  Shocco  Springs  letter, 
208 ;  writes  Democratic-Republican 
young  men,  209 ;  elected  vice-presi 
dent,  212  ;  speech  at  Philadelphia, 
213;    apostrophized  by  Clay,   216; 
permanent  residence  in  Washington, 
217  ;  visits  New  England  with  Jack 
son,  218  ;  nominated  for  presidency, 
219-222  ;  letter  to  Sherrod  Williams, 
226-229  ;  letter  accepting  presiden 
tial  nomination,  229,  230  ;  declares 
against  abolition  in  District  of  Co 
lumbia,  235  ;  letter  to  Samuel  Gwin, 
233  ;  votes  for  bill  prohibiting  circu 
lation  of  anti-slavery  literature,  237  ; 
elected  president,  238-241  ;  inaugu 
rated,   243  ;  his  cabinet,   243,   309- 
311,   336;    inaugural  address,   243- 
245 ;  interview  with  New  York  mer 
chants  in  crisis  of   1837,   272,  273; 
summons  Congress,  275 ;  Von  Hoist's 
opinions  of,  278, 347,  n. ;  meets  extra 
session,  279 ;  message  to  extra  ses 
sion,  280-284 ;    message  to  regular 
session  of   1837,  295 ;  issues  procla 
mation  against  American  invaders 
of  Canada,  303  ;  message  of  Decem 


ber,  1838,  312 ;  action  on  northeast 
boundary  question,  315 ;  trip 
through  New  York,  316,  317 ;  mes 
sage  of  December,  1839,  319,  320; 
signs  independent  treasury  bill,  323  ; 
in  campaign  of  1840,  325,  326,  330 ; 
declares  "gag"  rule  justified,  325; 
defeat,  334,  335 ;  message  of  Decem 
ber,  1840,  335  ;  welcomes  Harrison, 
337  ;  social  administration  of  White 
House,  337-339 ;  Clay's  estimate  of, 
339;  retires  to  Lindenwald,  340; 
candidate  for  Democratic  renomina- 
tion,  341-351  ;  visits  the  South,  and 
Clay  and  Jackson,  342;  his  Texas 
letter,  346-348  ;  defeated  for  renom- 
iuation,  350 ;  supports  Polk,  354 ; 
sympathizes  with  Barnburner  defec 
tion  from  the  Democratic  party, 
358 ;  letter  to  Barnburner  conven 
tion  at  Utica,  363,  364  ;  nominated 
for  presidency  at  Utica,  364 ;  letter 
to  Free-soil  convention,  366 ;  defeat 
in  1848,  and  end  of  political  career, 
368,  369 ;  yields  to  Clay  compromise 
of  1850,  371  ;  supports  Pierce,  375  ; 
revisits  Europe,  376 ;  tendered  ap 
pointment  as  international  arbitra 
tor,  376;  supports  Buchanan,  377- 
379;  opposes  election  of  Lincoln, 
380 ;  literary  work  in  retirement, 
381 ;  death,  382  ;  person,  character, 
and  place  in  history,  383-398. 

Van  Buren,  Mrs.,  18,  31. 

Van  Ness,  William  P.,  36. 

Von  Hoist,  H.,  estimate  of  Van  Buren, 
278,  347,  n. 

Walker,  Robert  J.,  348. 

War  with  England,  49. 

Washington's  opinion  on  party  ap 
pointments,  39. 

Watkins,  Tobias,  180,  181. 

Webster,  Daniel,  80 ;  views  on  tariff 
in  1824,  85 ;  speech  on  Panama  mis 
sion,  111,  112,  160 ;  speech  on  Van 
Buren's  rejection  as  minister  to 
England,  197-199  ;  on  removal  of 
the  deposits,  216  ;  on  bill  against  cir 
culation  of  abolition  literature,  236 ; 
share  in  crisis  of  1837,  256,  285  ;  on 
surplus  distribution,  257,  286,  289  ; 
on  specie  circular,  285 ;  on  bill  for  •* 
issuance  of  treasury  notes,  290 ;  on 
independent  treasury,  296 ;  favors 
preemption  of  public  lands  by  actual 
settlers,  306  ;  in  campaign  of  1840, 
327-329 ;  remains  in  Tyler's  cabinet 
after  resignation  of  his  colleagues, 
343  ;  opinion  of  law  about  circula 
tion  of  abolition  literature,  345  ;  on 


404 


INDEX. 


Van  Buren  and  the  Free-soil  party. 

368,  372,  373. 
Weed,  Thurlow,  323. 
Whig  conventions :   in  1831,  210 :   in 

1840,  323,  324. 
White,  Hugh  L.,  219,  220. 
William  IV.,  196. 
Williams,  Elisha,  17. 
Wilmot,  David,  356,  358. 


Wilmot  proviso,  355-357. 
Wirt,  William,  142. 
Woodbury,  Levi,  170,  243. 
Wright,  Silas,  95,  237,  258,  351,  353, 
355,  356,  388,  389. 

Young    Men's    National    Republican 

Convention,  211. 
Young,  Samuel,  350,  363. 


fr\J         O    . 

LOAN  OEPT. 

C    ,rl»T,«  « 


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